


What We Left Behind

by glaciesdraco



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Characters to be added, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Experimentation, Gen, M/M, Minor Character(s), Original Character(s), Post-Ketsu, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prison, Psychological Torture, Slow Build, Slow Burn, ooh that made me feel all tingly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:42:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24675547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glaciesdraco/pseuds/glaciesdraco
Summary: After the events in Ikebukuro years ago, Izaya Orihara sees himself facing down an old enemy, or at least what he thought was his old enemy. It seemed someone dangerous has taken an interest in him, someone he never expected.Meanwhile, Shizuo, who has a tendency to make himself learn things the hard way, has learned some information which he finds rather difficult to swallow. When he refuses to accept the reality placed in front of him, he ends up forcing himself into a situation which is no one's fault but his own.
Relationships: Heiwajima Shizuo/Orihara Izaya
Comments: 45
Kudos: 166





	1. A Hostile Interview with Izaya Orihara

**Author's Note:**

> Hmmmmm... all I'm gonna say is that I hope you'll stay tuned. This is gonna be a pretty wild ride.

There was a stark white light beside him as he cracked his eyes open. He was sitting in an unfamiliar chair, propped up by his weakening arms against a rather wobbly table. His ears were ringing as blood beat against his brain. Gradually, Izaya Orihara woke up from where he had been slumped in a chair. 

He heard typing from where the light was coming. On the right side of the table, perpendicular to him there was an old timey typewriter that someone was clacking away on. He blinked blearily at it, considering for a moment that he might have fallen asleep at home, but no. The home of the family he had been staying with looked nothing like this dark shadow of a place. 

Ah, I see. Izaya realized with a slight smile forming on his lips. It seemed he had been kidnapped. His head was foggy, and his neck ached from where he’d been slumped over.

“Good morning,” came a voice close to the clacking, and Izaya looked over to them, an odd feeling creeping into his chest. Though the only light shone there, he was unable to get a good look at this person aside from their strong hands on the typewriter.

“Ah. Good morning. Can I assume you’re the one who kidnapped me then?” Izaya asked them cheerfully. Their fingers were relentless on the keys. His mind was still fuzzy, but he was able to make out some of the words on the paper hanging halfway over the edge upside down. The English terms for his height, his date of birth, his blood type, and even the color of his eyes and hair were written out in neat lines.

When the person didn’t answer, Izaya looked up to meet their eyes in the darkness, smiling. He had absolutely no idea who they could possibly be- or rather, he had so many ideas it was hard to pinpoint exactly which one it could be. 

“I must admit, whoever your leader is has gotten the better of me this time.” Izaya said, trying to fill the silence.

“Oh?” The person on the typewriter replied. Their voice was oddly familiar, the shortness of their speech and the flatness of their tone filling Izaya’s chest with an odd sense of déjà vu- definitely masculine. He smiled as he was acknowledged. 

“Yes, I had no idea someone was planning to come after me so soon. I didn’t even get the chance to tell my bodyguard to record my favorite cartoons before I left. What a bother.”

“Orihara Izaya,” the person beside him said grimly, their fingers on the peculiar old machine stopping abruptly. “27 years old, born male on May 4th to Kyouko and Shirou Orihara, proceeded by your sisters Mairu and Kururi Orihara by an impressive ten years.”

Izaya beamed as this person started to speak, trying hard to suppress his laughter. This reminded him all too much of a time a few years ago when he had been tied up with a bag placed over his head and had his life threatened. At the time, he had planned out this encounter nearly action by action and the person spouting all the information about him had gotten it by talking to one of his aliases over the internet. He couldn’t recall selling his own information in the near past, so it was very likely they had gotten it from somewhere else. What a waste; he liked it when he got to sell his own information since it was good for a laugh.

“I can’t help but wonder, Orihara-san,” his kidnapper said, in their deeply unsettling voice, “When your sisters came along, did that hit you very hard? After all, your parents already spent so little time with you as it was.”

Izaya kept his smile fixed in place, but his eyes could show the telltale signs of being caught off guard. Under the table, he fiddled with his hands.

“What an odd question,” Izaya said, keeping his tone even and disinterested. “I wouldn’t say I cared all that much when they came around. Honestly, they were just more like a bother than anything. I don’t resent them if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It wasn’t.” The man said unsurprised as he resumed his typing. “Just an observational question.”

Izaya allowed himself to relax a bit, rubbing his arms under the table where his old wounds had started to ache as his anxiety started to grow. 

“So may I ask yet who you are, or must I continue to call you Kidnapper-san?” Izaya said, taking on a bright and cheerful tone as he had before. 

“You already know who I am,” Kidnapper-san said dismissively, “I am your End.”

Completely and unquestionably taken off guard, Izaya devolved into hideous laughter which echoed the chamberlike room.

“Oh is that so? Well I must say I didn’t expect you to be so invested in my physical profile,” he gestured to the paper on the typewriter which only seemed to be growing longer. Apparently, the type of paper this person was using was the kind with undefined edges, but Izaya could see that everything on it was about him. He could even make out a few sentences, though he was more focused on the conversation than he was on reading. “I don’t usually have such dedicated stalkers, but I suppose if you’re a serial killer who makes a habit out of learning everything you can before doing the deed it makes sense.”

“I am no serial killer,” Kidnapper-san said, adjusting the typewriter mechanically. Apparently, that’s all they had to say on the matter. Izaya kept looking at them expectingly. “But we do value knowing our subjects.”

“I see, so I am an experiment!” Izaya gushed, laughing even harder. He was methodically guessing information as he put on his show, noting the tells and gestures of Kidnapper-san even if he could only see his hands and the bottom of his chin, which was unusually squared. In addition to this, Kidnapper-san’s clothes were plain-colored, which Izaya was sure was intentional since he couldn't properly make them out. “Well I’m sure you must be rather disappointed then, that you couldn’t catch me in better shape.”

He bent his arms upward and gestured to his body, referring to his chair-ridden body, grinning maliciously at this person whom he could not see. He couldn’t deny how bitter it made him to know that, had he been more able-bodied, that he might not have been captured.

“Yes,” Kidnapper-san said simply, “It was very disappointing to discover the state you are in. My employer however, has a very specific way of going about these things though, and what’s more important than following protocol?”

All the time this person was saying this, Izaya could feel his face breaking into a slightly lessened smile. Curiouser and curiouser, this situation he was in seemed to be. He knew he ought to be excited that someone interesting was taking a _special_ interest in him, but mostly he just felt inconvenienced. He rubbed tentatively at his aching arms, leaning back in the hard chair with a show of looking blasé.

“Protocols huh? Well I can appreciate that. Though don’t you think the end of someone’s life should come suddenly and unexpectedly so you get the best reactions possible from them? You’ll get to see what they’re truly like in death- do they die gracefully and without fear or do they writhe in misery and beg for forgiveness?” Even as he was speaking an unsettling creeping crawled up his neck, but Izaya Orihara had a certain protocol of his own when it came to his self-preservation.

“I can agree with that,” Kidnapper-san said, as they seemed to finish their typing and cut the edge of the paper with a built-in cutter on the machine, gathering up everything he had typed. “The end of a human life is most valuable when it is unexpected. Human beings can be very charming with their faces contorted in agony or even with such a level of assent that it’s almost a shame.”

Izaya smiled. “You make it sound as though you’ve ended a life before.”

“You make it sound as though you haven’t ended a life before,” Kidnapper-san shot back, as he folded the paper neatly into a stack. “This may come as a shock to you Orihara-san, but we already know quite a bit of your personal history without obtaining it from the likes of you.”

“It’s about as shocking as snow on Mt. Fuji,” Izaya said with a bland smile, “Really now. It’s not as though I make it all that difficult! But that doesn’t bother me. Yes, so I’ve played the role in a murder or two, so what?” Izaya shrugged off their smugness with ease. “I tire of this conversation. So, what shall you do first? Torture every inkling of information out of me until I have nothing to offer? Will you deface me and humiliate me before spreading pictures of it on the dark web? If you really are the last humans I’m ever going to meet then I hope your hideous souls are truly, truly beautiful.”

The last statement was the truth, which made his smile feel an inkling more genuine than usual. If only he could see their face, then he could truly find satisfaction in his own words reaching them; maybe this person and their accomplice or accomplices could finally be humans that didn’t disappoint him. Humans that he had no hand in destroying; truly and wildly despicable completely of their own volition. Izaya had met the type before, but since he had no knowledge of who these people were, his imagination was filling in the gaps, causing him to grin wider and wider with miserable delight.

Izaya Orihara feared death more than anything, but he would gladly accept a fate that worked as a gateway to another human’s destruction. That’s what his mind reasoned anyway as the fear inside of him grew; whoever this was would certainly be much worse than he could ever be, uglier and awful enough to make even him look like a saint.

Or they could just be justice-serving too. That would also be fitting, considering the villainous life he led. Truthfully Izaya didn’t really care as long as his mind made them seem worthy enough.

His legs were shaking under the table.

“You’re mistaken.” The person behind the keyboard said as they lifted up the light which had shone on the typewriter, now shining on their face. All at once Izaya’s shaking ceased and he froze. The eyes staring back at him were a dark color hidden behind a pair of blue shades.

“When I told you I was your end, I did not mean I was going to kill you.”

Izaya didn’t breathe. He didn’t speak. He didn’t blink.

“I only meant, that this is where life as you know it ends.” They leaned forward into the light so that Izaya could get a better look at his outfit: of course. “Orihara Izaya, you are a waste of life. You tried and failed to obtain immortality and you have nothing to show for it. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

Izaya gathered himself as best as he could, looking down at his hands and fidgeting, the slightest of nervous smiles on his face.

“Why… do you look like him?” Izaya asked smally. “Is this… really hell? Or am I…”

“Let’s review your list of fears, shall we?” Kidnapper-san said loudly, turning the light back on the stack of paper and unveiling it like an accordion to a specific section and reading aloud, “Number one, you are afraid of dogs is that right?”

Izaya’s arms felt vaguely itchy, like there was blood coursing through them at a rate they weren’t used to. “That’s… a very common fear I think. And it’s not like I’m afraid of them I just don’t like them. They’re… they’re not like humans.”

“I see.” Kidnapper-san said dismissively as Izaya continued to actively avoid looking over even though his eyes were no longer visible. “And being yelled at is just another thing you don’t like?”

“W-Who likes to be yelled at?” Izaya said with a hysterical laugh. “It’s sounds like you just listed off a bunch of mild inconveniences that lots of people generally dislike on your little profile.”

“And dead fisheyes?!” the Doppelganger said louder as if trying to prove a point, and Izaya couldn’t help but wince. He even sounded like him. “That’s not a very common thing to feel discomfort towards, right? You even have a history of feeling sick when coming into contact.”

So whoever this was knew even that much about him. Perhaps they had purchased information on him from Izaya’s sisters. The situation just went from mildly inconvenient to flagrantly annoying. He had been toying with the idea of letting himself be killed by these people but now he wanted to burn their entire organization down just for pissing him off.

“You’ve even conditioned your voice,” Izaya laughed softly, “I suppose I should feel special, but I’m mostly just creeped out. I’ve never… ha…” Izaya played off a strained breath as a laugh, “I’ve never been stalked so heavily before.”

“You’re also quite squeamish to pain,” Doppelganger-san reached forward and Izaya recoiled at the memory of being punched by those hands. His entire façade broke in an instant, his horribly weakened arms going to his face, and closing his eyes tightly like a petulant child while crying out in the softest most pathetic noise he’d ever made, “No…!”

Only to be sharply pinched on the arm to the point it would bruise. Izaya didn’t have the strength to jerk away or move, just letting them do as they pleased.

“And I see that you are still terrified of death. Which means it won’t be hard to incentivize you here.”

“Here…” Izaya murmured under his breath. “Just… what kind of place is here?”

“ _I told you_ ,” the Doppelganger said in perfect English, _“I am your end. From this point on, Izaya Orihara, you are a dead man. You weren’t using your own life after all. So why can’t it belong to us now?”_

It sounded even more ominous with the person speaking a different language but Izaya quirked a smile from how strange it was.

“You speak so strangely,” he murmured, “I’m… not using my life you say? I suppose you’re going to offer me some sort of explanation into your strange organization?”

Or if they wanted to just kill him now so he wouldn’t have to deal with this it might be preferable, the part of Izaya’s brain that could still be snarky noted.

“All will be explained in due time.” They answered, pulling the light up on their face again and Izaya had to look away because even though those eyes were shaped differently, it was somehow the same. It brought everything back to that one moment that changed everything for him.

“And listing my fears is only the beginning?” Izaya said quietly, “As your subject I suppose I’m going to just, what exactly? Undergo psychological evaluation? Will you be poking and prodding me with needles, chemicals of unknown origin being injected into my body?”

_“We,”_ they said, and as if Izaya’s words had been a prophet, they pulled out a tranquilizer and reached forward. Izaya still had the strength to recoil but because of his condition he could only manage to throw himself onto the floor. They grabbed him by the neck and lifted him back up, sticking him in the jugular vein with something that instantly ran warm into his veins and made everything around him fuzzy. _“Will fix you.”_

“ _Fix me_ ,” Izaya spat with a bitter smile as he laughed himself into unconsciousness. _“Who even are you?”_

“You know who I am,” Kidnapper-san said nastily as he dug the tranquilizer deeper into Izaya’s vein causing it to burn, “My name… the name you know so well… I am One, I am progress, I am the eternal cloud…”

“Shinichi Tsukumoya.”


	2. An Uneasy Intervention with Izaya Orihara

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izaya meets his second captor. Things are starting to look not great for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya'll motherfuckers want some exposition? 
> 
> I don't know how to make up any premise that isn't complicated as piss. RIP. 
> 
> Warnings for some ableist language. Referring to wheelchair disability as "broken" etc. This person is a piece of shit villain I want you to know. I don't plan to make language like this a consistent theme throughout this story, and in fact I have ever intention to minimize chapters like this as much as possible. If there's anything that anyone more informed than I can tell me to help in this matter than please tell me! (And also any advice on wheelchair living and how to write it would be fantastic)

Life for Izaya Orihara had changed in the last couple of years. At the same time, it hadn’t changed at all. Yes, he had left Ikebukuro, and was no longer physically capable of things he once was, but the core of Izaya Orihara remained the same. He loved human beings with a feverous passion. He might not be able to fight one in the street with his signature switchblades, but he still desired to watch over them, see them in all their magnificently awful ways, dip his hands into their mold, and make them his own.

Yes it was true that before he had been impure in his love, selfishly using them in the hopes of destroying a monster and becoming worthy of a warrior’s heaven, and he had certainly learned from his mistakes: never fly too close to the sun. Humans were all he wanted. Monsters could go about their existence without him ever sticking his nose into it again.

He had followed that new principle and his life had returned to some semblance of normalcy. He reasoned that he was still the same twisted wretched person, just with a better sense of reason. There was the issue of the state of his body, but he had accepted his state as his punishment for straying too far. That was of course before it all came flooding back at once. That strange person who had been interrogating him was dressed like That Man in order to intimidate him. That Man who Izaya had avoided so zealously since he had awoken all those years ago to his broken body and accepted his new life. He didn’t need more than a moment to recall the events of his past. He’d sat there and trembled like a child as his captor listed off a grocery list of his supposed fears and he had stupidly fallen victim to such a weak manipulation tactic. If he wasn’t so groggy from being drugged, he would’ve laughed as he awoke.

He never thought he’d have to learn where his place was twice.

When he awoke again, he was in a wheelchair, though not his wheelchair, which was high tech and much more comfortable. This one was not nearly as fancy, though he did have a cushion around his neck for support and there was a blanket place neatly over his legs. His arms were folded in a way they wouldn’t be strained since they weren’t holding him up, elbows resting on the sides. It was such a stout difference from the last time he was awoken he could almost convince himself that it was just a horrible nightmare.

“I made you some tea. I hope your head doesn’t hurt too much.”

A young woman with long black hair and sharp brown eyes was looking at him from her desk. They were sitting in what appeared to be an office space, which was artificially lit by panels along the walls in lieu of windows, which made looking around a rather eye-stinging experience. The woman’s desk was a dark mahogany and rather tidy, but there was no computer set up on top of it- only another one of those old typewriters. A familiar stack of accordion folded papers was also on the desk: the files that were being typed up from before. The woman picked up a teacup and a rather intricate kettle as she walked over to Izaya and poured him a cup. As she came closer, he got a better look at her appearance, and realized who she was- or rather who she resembled. She smiled, apparently noticing the recognition on his face and with that Izaya managed a small smile himself and took the teacup from her.

“What an odd sense of deja vu…” Izaya said, his voice a bit soft because of his hurting throat. “But I’m sure Namie-san wouldn’t just willingly prepare a cup of tea for me as a form of comfort.”

He pointedly held the teacup away from himself, balancing it on his arm rest. Not that he thought his captors were going to poison him _yet again_ , but his previous conversation with his other captor was still ringing fresh in his mind. He couldn’t help but feel uneasy around this new person, who seemed to contrast his previous captor in disposition.

“Our disguises aren’t meant to impersonate,” she said simply, and now that Izaya was listening, her voice even sounded similar to Namie’s. It had been some time since he and Namie spoke, and an odd feeling erupted in his chest. He supposed he really was working with professionals, “Only strike a chord in our subject’s memories.”

“Subjects, hm? I suppose that’s one way to make yourselves more memorable.” He remembered his previous conversation, where he had also been referred to as a subject, recalled that he was likely being used for experiments of some sort. Izaya willed himself to sit up a little straighter and curled his smile into a more genuine one.

“Think of it as a kickstart to your mind,” the Namie lookalike told him as she delicately handled and sipped her own tea, looking much more serene than the real one, “First impressions are very important for people who are starting on a long venture together.”

Izaya chuckled at that. “I see! Well I’m not so sure that Namie is who I’d pick to introduce yourself to me, but needless to say, your lackey from last time has certainly made an impression.” He rubbed at his neck where his veins on either side were swollen and irritated from having been injected with narcotic drugs twice in an unclear amount of time. As she spoke, he observed her characteristics, and little tells. Somehow, she even moved a little bit like the real Namie.

She smiled, but her eyes were unamused. It was a facial expression much like Namie might make when she’d go undercover. In real life, she was just not cut out to be an actress, and why should she be? She was a woman of science. Honestly, it was a crime Izaya had kept her as a secretary for so long. The memory of all of Namie’s wasted time made him smile.

“That,” she said with an exasperated voice, knocking him out of his brief stupor, “Yes well. I had told him that starting off with such a… harrowing memory might be a bit too much for you to stomach at the beginning, but…” she sighed, long suffering, “He was confident that your stubbornness at the very beginning would make any other character unfit for the job.”

This woman however, seemed to be an excellent actress, staring into Izaya’s eyes as if testing him. Even if she said kind things that the real Namie would never say and made facial expressions the real Namie would never make, she was still like her in many ways. It made him feel like he was seeing a side to her that he had never seen.

He hated that he was falling for this woman’s schtick, even if it was only a little.

“Interesting that you call them all characters. Then I have even more puppeteering to look forward to,” Izaya said with a bland smile, “I do have to ask though, am I really worth all this effort? You’d think if you wanted to torture someone, you’d get a candidate with at least a little more value than a lowly info broker like me.”

“There’s no need to be so modest, Izaya-san,” she said, her face blooming into an expression so unlike Namie that it was unsettling. Her eyes were softened, and the corners of her mouth curved upward. It was painful to watch, not to mention the tone of her voice was teeming with adulation. “You’re a legend around here you know. We’ve been wanting to meet you in person for quite some time.”

“In person huh? So you’ve been keeping your eye on me?” his bitter smile slipped out and he couldn’t help it. If he hadn’t been confined to this chair, if he had been watching the situation with a little more care, maybe he would have the slightest inkling as to who these people were.

“Yes,” she said nodding, “And after the show you put on for him, I can’t say that my comrade in arms was mistaken in his assumption. It’s obvious that you will be a force to be reckoned with.”

“Comrade in arms,” Izaya repeated as he watched her smoothly move to sit atop of her desk without a care in the world, “So what, you impersonate the women and he impersonates the men?”

“It’s a bit more sophisticated than that,” she told him with a laugh as she got up off her desk to start moving around the room, carrying the stack of accordion papers and glancing down at them, “All of us can impersonate just about anyone from anywhere around the world.”

“And if you want to impersonate someone of a different race? Although it does look as though you’re probably not Asian. Do you dye your skin tone then? Are you constantly performing reconstructive surgeries on your eyes, nose, and face? Or is it all just special effects you’re using?”

“Really now, constant surgery would just be tedious,” she didn’t seem annoyed that he was asking her such candid questions about their vocation, more pleased than anything. Izaya didn’t miss the way she seemingly relished having his eye on her as she trotted behind her desk and made a show of placing his huge unorthodox file onto the center of it. He noticed a loose paper placed neatly on top of it with what appeared to be a bulleted list. “Our processes by which we treat our skin and facial features is a very intricate process. And our study of the individual’s personality, voice, and habits? We’re in the same class as professionals all over the world and more.”

“And you don’t ever get tired of it?” Izaya inquired interestedly. “It doesn’t bother you that you never get to look the way you were born? Tell me then, do you ever forget what you really look like? It must be so hard not having an identity of your own.”

She didn’t seem to mind at all, that he was mocking her. It kind of annoyed him. Unpredictable humans could be very fun for him but in situations like this they could be troublesome.

“I honestly didn’t anticipate you being so interested,” she said looking up and beaming at him, “I’ll have to let you into my personal quarters one morning and see how it’s done. You’ll have plenty of time to do so after all.”

Ah, so they could finally get to that. Izaya pointedly averted his eyes from her gaze.

“I’m not actually all that interested, I was just trying to annoy you,” He said with a smile. She didn’t seem to mind at all, that he was mocking her. It kind of annoyed him. Unpredictable humans could be very fun for him but in situations like this they could be troublesome.

He took a moment to gather his surroundings before he continued speaking. He noted the mirror hanging on the wall to his right, lined up perfectly with his face, so not at the eye level of a normal person. He wondered if they did that on purpose. “I’m much more interested in your organization and what your plans are moving forward. You did say something about a ‘long venture’, didn’t you?”

Izaya chuckled as he made a show of looking around her office, noting the minimal storage cabinets and a black door to his left leading who knows where- maybe a bathroom, but more likely something else. The two cushioned chairs that were likely arranged where his wheelchair was located the majority of the time were slid up against the wall out of the way. The main exit was directly behind him, though it wasn’t like he could just make his way out of here. His arms were entirely too weak, and it was probably locked anyway. If this were _his_ wheelchair, he’d be able to remote control himself to get anywhere he wanted, and it was even a little bit faster than most. He tried not to huff in his frustration.

She watched him looking around, sipping the last of her tea before placing her cup aside. Her desk was mostly bare aside from the typewriter and a fancy desk lamp- a rather unnecessary addition considering all of the light panels removing all shadows from the room.

“I’m interested in knowing what you think you’ve figured out so far, Izaya. Would you mind going first?”

If Kidnapper-san from before had been meant to ring out all his failures and weaknesses, then this woman was supposed to raise up his confidence. The difference in her treatment was so classic Good Cop and Bad Cop Izaya felt the urge to roll his eyes. Even their area had been manipulated so that he would associate the two with their respective roles; an interrogator in a plain room for the first, and then a room with all the vibes of a psychologist’s office, although Izaya got the feeling that the mirrors and the lack of any significant decorations or plants was meant to make him feel observed. Izaya didn’t know that he’d ever been observed in all his life. He grinned at her question.

“Yes, of course you would want to know what I think first. This is all just an opportunity for you to show off as much as you possibly can, right? You want me to get a glimpse of your house of smoke and mirrors before you really lay down the hammer on me. Well let’s see, I’ll try to withhold my personal criticisms from my observations but no promises,” he took a deep breath, rubbing at his sore throat.

“Your organization, group, whatever you’d like to call it… likely fights for some improperly named justice, or something equally stupid, and you gathered some information about me and my past, looked up where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing these days, and rather impressively under my radar. You decided I was an easy target, maybe you even took a little bit of interest in me as a person,”

Izaya gently lifted the cup of tea on his arm rest and took a sip before meeting Not-Namie-san’s eyes with a bold smirk.

“I imagine that you lot are the type of humans who enjoy collecting people. Humans you perceive as ‘broken’ or outcasted by society. And all these… theatrics, for lack of a better word, are a form of psychological torture that you used to get into their heads. It’s like a fun little back and forth, like a cat bouncing a dying mouse up in the air on its paws. Only then, once the mouse feels like they’re merely being played with, will the cat finally release its claws and tear the little vermin into shreds.”

He took another sip which was soothing to his sore throat before he put his cup back into the saucer. He realized how hungry he was now, and he wondered how long it had been since he’d eaten. They’d had fried fish at dinner with some sort of strange sauce, which had been delicious. Ah he wished he could go back to that moment and savor it a bit more.

“At least that’s how much I grasped from my little interrogation in the dark room.” He twirled his finger through his hair as he looked up from his tea and rested his cup back on the arm rest, smiling at her. “And I’m guessing the typewriters are what, like a motif? Or maybe they have a practical reason? Who knows!”

He massaged his throat when he was done talking. Truthfully, this was only something he’d guessed in the short time he’d been awake since his initial interrogation. Clearly, they were some sort of group, relatively small since he had never heard of them and this facility was some sort of underground hideout for them to carry out their odd cult-like belief system. Impersonators who tried to ‘ _fix’_ criminals. When Imposter-san had used that term earlier Izaya had been shaking like a leaf. Now that he was a bit more relaxed and frankly annoyed by this cliché setup. He would have to figure out how to negotiate with them, pay whatever they wanted since that was what groups like theirs were typically after. Maybe he could even grow to like whatever their setup was, and they could keep in touch once he’d been returned home.

That’s how Izaya really preferred it. He wasn’t built to experience life. He grinned. This ridiculous change in setting had actually worked against them when they had a person of sound mind who could actually think clearly when they weren’t being yelled a cheer of the top ten most common fears.

“Eh, is that all you’ve guessed?” Not-Namie said a little disappointedly, “And what about the other information you learned?”

“Hmm? Let’s see now what am I forgetting…?” Izaya made a show of looking up at the ceiling, tapping his finger to his chin pensively.

“How curious. I thought that would be your first question honestly. Perhaps you were just a bit too frozen in fear.” Her casual tone showed that she wasn’t in any way concerned about Izaya teasing her, in fact her eyelids lowered as though she were charmed. He wondered how long her feigning control of this situation would last.

No matter what information she may have gathered on him, Izaya swore he would shrug it off. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that these people could change into whoever they wanted, even people Izaya hadn’t seen in person for nearly three years. It didn’t matter that they knew he was afraid of looking into the eyes of a dead fish. It didn’t matter if they threw him into a pin with a bunch of angry dogs or had Kidnapper-san (whatever his real name was) yelling at him again.

It didn’t matter because he knew what true fear was. And there was no way that they could get _him_ here.

Ah that’s right, Izaya recalled suddenly, breaking out into a devilishly sardonic grin. There was that little detail that good ole Kidnapper-san had mentioned to him just before losing consciousness. Perhaps he actually had forgotten something out of fear, he thought amusedly. He decided to play it off as a joke, since that was all that it was to him.

“Ah, I thought I had just imagined it, but did someone mention to me that your friend, or rather… you _coworker_ is Shinichi Tsukumoya?” he grinned devilishly to let her know exactly what he thought of that. Her smile remained fixed in place. “Or perhaps you’re claiming that you’re all Shinichi Tsukumoya? Shinichi Tsukumoya is actually a street gang from Ikebukuro which no one knows because they just impersonate other people all the time! Now wouldn’t that be a laugh! The biggest revelation of the decade!” Izaya said before bursting out into laughter so hard he jostled the blanket and his neck pillow from his wheelchair. His arms felt weak and he felt dizzy. He almost dropped his tea, hanging dangerously from his unsteady hand, but he was too amused to care. His jaw also ached as he jostled it around. He might even fall on the floor at this rate.

The Namie imposter watched him with a fond smile on her lips as he devolved into hideous laughter. She looked almost motherly as she came closer to take his teacup that was still full and fix the blanket on his legs.

“I expected that you’d find it difficult to believe. After all, you and Shinichi have always had a special bond, haven’t you?”

Izaya halted his laughter at a perfectly timed moment to look up, glaring daggers and grinning into her soft condescending eyes.

“Bond?” he repeated, “Shinichi Tsukumoya is not even human. Everyone knows that. And anyone who knows anything about me knows that I share no sort of bond with anything inhuman,” he fiddled with the collar of his black shirt, which he realized was not the shirt he had been wearing before he’d been kidnapped. Instead it was a rather soft and insulated material that one would wear in extreme cold.

“I can see where you would find it difficult to believe. After all, you’ve always hated us. We’ve had the upper hand from the very beginning, and oh how bitter it has made you Izaya Orihara. Does our inhuman ability to gather intelligence at a breakneck speed make you feel inferior?” she smiled teasingly at him.

“So you really are going with that claim then?” Izaya said, meeting her eyes with a sarcastic smirk. “Both of you, or depending on the size of your group _all_ of you are Shinichi Tsukumoya? And just what kind of mission statement could you have that aligns you with them?”

Fake Namie reached forward and it took all of Izaya’s willpower not to flinch as she pulled his collar straight where it had gotten wrinkled. “The same as you’ve always known. We want to help other human beings accomplish their goals in life.”

Izaya devolved into laughter once more, jostling his arms a bit and causing fake Namie to move back slightly to give him room before he placed his hands on his arm rests.

“The real Shinichi Tsukumoya would know what _my_ goals are,” Izaya said flatly, and he hoped as coldly as possible. “I’ve always told him exactly what I wanted from him and that was this: to observe as many humans as possible.”

“You’re wrong.” She said flatly, frowning at him for the first time and reaching forth to grab him by the chin and force him to look up at her. It looked like Namie was trying to scold him for saying something rude to her about her brother.

“You obviously don’t know what’s good for you anymore Izaya Orihara. _Look at yourself_ ,” she said rather harshly. “You’ve been confined to this chair for almost three years now, making no attempt to make yourself better and for what? You’ve accomplished nothing while you’ve been away, and it only makes it more and more clear that you’ve been hiding from the world.”

Hearing this lecture coming from Namie’s voice of all people just made Izaya grin and laugh even harder.

“Ah so this is what this is? Your so-called “Shinichi Tsukumoya” group has staged an intervention for me because according to you I haven’t been myself in three years? Do you hate looking at wheelchairs that much, Tsukku-chan?” he called her that mockingly and just so he’d have something to call her because he could no longer think of her as Namie. “I had no idea that _Shinichi Tsukumoya_ felt so fondly of me.”

Shinichi Tsukumoya and Izaya had always had an antagonistic relationship at best. What they were describing as a bitter one-sided rivalry, Izaya knew it to always be a mutual dislike for. Tsukumoya might not have been human but he definitely had his opinions, and he had always been of the opinion that Izaya was not worth all this trouble.

The more he listened to her the less he believed that this could be anything to do with Tsukumoya. They were clearly impersonating him to get credibility of some kind so that Izaya would take them seriously. When he had first heard it, he had actually been a bit afraid. He felt positively foolish now.

“You misunderstand,” the woman Izaya was dubbing as Tsukku-chan told him, releasing his chin, and stepping back so that her back lined up perfectly with her desk, “There are multiple sides to the entity known as “Shinichi Tsukumoya”. We are but one aspect.”

Izaya smirked at her some more but he didn’t comment because he wanted to hear what she was gonna say next.

“Shinichi Tsukumoya as you know him in Tokyo,” she paused as she brushed her hair behind her ear in a way that was completely not like Namie. “And as they’re known in other parts of the world, truly does like to stay in the sidelines of life. Merely observing. Occasionally interacting with it through things like their publications and social media. However, there is much more to Shinichi Tsukumoya than that.”

Other parts of the world? Izaya quirked an eyebrow at her as she continued speaking.

“This place,” she said, stroking Izaya across the face with her palm, “Is for people like you who have lost all interest in their life. Human beings that once showed great potential to be interesting to observe. However, they’ve been beaten back somehow or another and have thus become ‘broken’.”

As she spoke, she walked around the room and stared towards the bright lights on the walls as if they were windows, her face hidden from view. Izaya was growing less and less patient as she spoke, finding what she had to say increasingly boring and overdrawn. He didn’t know or care if this was actually the Shinichi Tsukumoya he knew, who he already didn’t like in the first place.

“Therefore, we have decided to take you. You’re ours now. And we will _fix_ you.” She turned back and grinned at him. Namie’s grin was the scariest thing Izaya had ever seen.

“So in summation,” Izaya repeated, not hiding his cynicism from her, “You collect people, as I said, yes? That really doesn’t sound like Shinichi Tsukumoya to me.” He leaned back in his seat and looked for the first time at the clothes he was wearing with fascination. It didn’t feel particularly cold in this office, but he also got the distinct feeling that these clothes were keeping him from getting that way. On top of the new clothes, his fur-lined cape was also draped across his shoulders but under the neck pillow. That on top of blankets, it seemed like someone had taken a great deal of trouble into making sure he wouldn’t go cold.

His heart skipped a beat. He inhaled slowly.

It was the first moment Izaya considered that he might not be in Japan at all. He made a slight show of calming down and falling silent as he re-evaluated this situation. If he actually had been smuggled out of the country it might be a bit more difficult for him to return home. It all depended on where he had been smuggled and if any of his identification had been taken with him.

“You don’t think so?” Tsukku-chan said, returning to him and kneeling in front of him so that their eyes would meet. “Maybe you just don’t know Shinichi Tsukumoya like you think you do.”

Izaya stared into her eyes, trying to think what he could say that would help her to lose interest in him. If they had taken him this far then surely they were serious about this. What did they want from him? He had always only ever gotten the attention of others through what he did to other people. This was just…

“You say…” Izaya murmured, eyes fixating carefully on hers to gauge her reaction, “He… or I guess, you,” she smiled when he said that, “Like to keep humans running free as long as they aren’t broken in some way. Could you explain to me where I’ve failed to be interesting?”

“Aw Izaya,” she smiled kindly, “It’s not at all that you aren’t interesting! It’s that you’ve always been far too interesting and have absolutely nothing to show for it!”

Izaya gaped at her as she began to speak.

“I mean what I say, you know. We _are_ Shinichi Tsukumoya. We know everything about you.” She gestured to the stack of paper on her desk. “We know all that you’ve accomplished for yourself. You’re remarkably successful for an info broker. You know how to invest; you have many skills that would surprise even those closest to you. You’re bilingual, you have many fears that are so interesting! I’ve always known, since the moment we first interacted,” she was giving him a disturbingly nostalgic expression as she leaned in fondly. “That you were quite possibly a genius.”

Izaya was at a loss for words. The facial expression she was giving him was one that he had certainly seen on Namie’s face before. When talking about her brother.

“But most importantly of all, you play the role of a manipulator,” Tsukku-chan sat on her desk and regarded his mostly undrunk tea. She lifted it up and took a sip of it. “Well in that regard, you are a failure. Isn’t it so sad? How you tried so hard to reach immortality, supposedly take credit for all these events that happened in Ikebukuro around the time of your and Shizuo Heiwajima’s fight? And yet, it all fell apart right there at the end. You were rejected from Ms. Sturluson’s Valhalla. You tried to finally put an end to your all time enemy and you failed spectacularly.”

At the mention of that man’s name, Izaya shrank, staring at the floor with his dejected little smile.

“Yes, I recall your coworker’s riot act list of my fears. And I believe he also said something about my failings as a person. How I’ve wasted my life. I’ve heard what you think. I just fail to understand what’s so great about me that you’d go to all this trouble.”

He tried to sound pompous, but it ended up coming out a little bit desperate. Tsukku-chan laughed like it was merely something a petulant child would say.

“Why you? Is that really what you’re asking? Then I have to ask, why Shizuo Heiwajima?”

“Huh?” Izaya snapped to attention at the sinister edge to her tone. He could already feel himself losing his cool just from the mention of the man’s name. Kidnapper-san might still be prepared in that disguise and Izaya genuinely didn’t want to see it again, as childish as it sounded. “W-What…” his voice was a croak, but he cleared it. “What do you mean ‘why him’?”

“Are you even afraid to say his name?” she was laughing at him now, no longer with sympathy or care. He no longer felt like she was trying to show him kindness. No, rather it felt more like… yes. Maybe…

It was more like an ownership thing.

“I’m asking why you chose him to be your worst enemy,” She said rather forcefully, taking another sip of his tea. “Why ‘him’? Because of his monstrous strength? When you know several other humans with those same capabilities as him.”

“If you’re truly Shinichi Tsukumoya then you’d already know why.” Izaya would’ve said it more smugly but as it was, he was growing more distressed by the second. “Shi-Shizuo has always gotten in my way whenever I tried to do something.”

“Then, why didn’t you ever kill him?” she asked, seeming genuinely confused. “You had many opportunities to do so, and yet instead you only ever seemed to anger him further with feeble half-baked attempts.”

Izaya was at a loss. He didn’t know what she wanted from him. He met her eye uncomfortably, smiling awkwardly with nothing more than a shrug of his shoulders. She stared intensely at him for a moment, and Izaya wasn’t sure what would happen next.

“Anyway! I’ve just never seen how the two of you could possibly be equals. After all, you and Shizuo live in entirely different leagues.”

“Your little crush on me is very cute and all, Ms. Tsukku-chan,” Izaya interjected finally, gathering up the courage to say something, “But the real Shinichi Tsukumoya knows that I only love humans. And even more than that, I don’t love humans the way you seem to be yearning for me to. So why don’t you just cut to the chase and tell me what you want from me so we can both stop embarrassing ourselves, hm?”

“I already have what we want,” she shrugged. “You.”

Izaya’s heart stopped. This was bad. If this twisted woman and her cronies only wanted him to be here, undergoing… whatever the hell they did here, all under the guise of Shinichi Tsukumoya, then how was he going to get out of it? Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he really was going to become these people’s toy.

The panic was starting to settle in. Izaya leaned into his chair, watching his arms shake. His legs were hurting from the way he was sitting, as they always did. Was this going to be his life now? Just like that, Izaya Orihara had disappeared one day only to become the plaything for a group of grown adults who liked to play dress up? Maybe it was a little ironic, fitting even, that he became a victim of human trafficking, seeing as how he used to give away the information of illegal immigrants and runaways to people who committed such crimes. Suddenly he felt a stroke at his cheek, and he looked up suddenly to find Tsukku-chan staring lovingly into his eyes like a true doll. She was like a toy collector who’d just discovered an old model which need renovating.

“There’s no need to despair!” Tsukku-chan said sweetly, no longer sounding like Namie at all, and the way she’d changed her hair looked nothing like Namie’s hair. “You’ll be taken such good care of here. And you’re not alone! This facility is a place for all kinds of people just like you.”

“Your own personal dollhouse,” Izaya said softly, looking into her eyes, “For people.”

“It’s not so different from how you treat others, is it Izaya? Only unlike you, we help the people we take under our wing. We make them better, more fitting for the role in society they belong to. As long as you’re with us, we’ll help you reach your full potential. We’re going to fix these,” she regarded his arms and legs, “And this.” She kissed him on the forehead, “Because really you’re quite messed up, you know?”

“Oh I’m messed up?” Izaya demanded but his tone was dead calm, and he was smiling again. “I suppose that’s the only way I could’ve ended up in this situation to begin with.”

“Now then, I think that’s enough discussion for now,” Tsukku-chan said, petting his head. “You’ve got much rehabilitation to do! We have processes and protocols for these things. Oh, my other coworker will give you all the details about the rules. Since you have extenuating circumstances,” she referred to his wheelchair with a bit of disdain as she stood up straight. “You’ve been given a room all to yourself. We already know your daily routine and what type of care you require from our intricate info collecting network. I can’t wait to hear all your theories on how we gathered all this without being Shinichi Tsukumoya!”

She giggled to herself before reaching under her desk and pulling a lever of some kind. Now that he was looking at her properly, he didn’t know how he ever saw Namie in her at all. Not even Namie was this crazy.

The door behind him opened and Izaya turned with alarm, but thankfully the person that came in to pull his wheelchair was dressed like a person he didn’t know. She had starkly white hair and gray eyes. She bowed before she came into the room.

“ _Hello_ ,” she said kindly to Izaya in English as she approached his wheelchair. “ _You may call me Shinichi Tsukumoya.”_

She took the handles of Izaya’s wheelchair and started to turn him around so she could push him out of the room.

“Of course I can,” Izaya muttered, continuing to speak in Japanese. He turned back to the one he called Tsukku-chan, “You’re all really going to keep up this façade just for your little protocol?”

Tsukku-chan was only delighted by this and grinned at him. “ _I can’t wait to see how you handle yourself Izaya Orihara,_ ” she said in perfect English. “ _By the way, you are no longer in Japan, so try to get used to speaking English all the time, okay? It’s rude otherwise._ ”

With this big revelation out of the way, Izaya Orihara was wheeled out of his second interrogation room by the strange white woman. He tried not to let the fear hold him too tightly, but he couldn’t help it. His arms felt itchy, and despite the many layers these people had wrapped him in, he felt cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still confused? That's okay, there's more to come! :D 
> 
> Tsukku-chan is a force to be reckoned with in the never shutting up department. She might even give Izaya a run for his money. He's not gonna just take it sitting down though! (oh wait...)
> 
> Also, I swear this is a Shizaya fic lmao. It is a slow burn so there's gonna be some rough parts, but after a certain point they'll both be in all the chapters. Trust me, it's hard for me too. (I want to see my little boy (here he comes))


	3. The Death of Izaya Orihara

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izaya experiences the beginning of his end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Anri Sonohara was smiling at him."
> 
> I thought I'd do one of those cute before the chapter where I put down a quote out of context hehehe.
> 
> God this became looooooong. Like, so long.

He felt a chill as he was exited into the stagnant air of the inside of this cavernous building. He raised a hand and felt the fur lining at his shoulder, letting the familiarity of it give him some form of comfort. 

In just a few moments, he would be able to accept that this was happening to him. 

One breath. 

Two breaths. Hold. 

Release. 

He rubbed at his arms absentmindedly as he looked up into the dark ceiling above. The floor was a long walkway that wrapped circular around the wide building, the first floor of quite a few. Even as the white-haired woman pushed him so that he was in front of the ledge, which was bordered by a measly metal fence, Izaya was unable to make out just how high up he was and just how much higher there was to go. 

A tower of darkness and isolation from all civilization. A prison in every sense of the word. As though Izaya hadn’t been trapped in the prison of his own mind and body for the last three years.

“Shinichi-san,” Izaya started, before remembering to speak in perfect English, “Just… what part of the world are we in exactly?”

There was a defined coolness to the air, a natural one that wasn’t generated. They had to be somewhere where it got cold, which would explain the hefty clothes. He felt Shinichi’s hand brush against his shoulder as he was looking down and she pulled the cape in tighter to fasten the buttons.

“Oh no you’re shivering,” she said, her face still bland but her voice was laced with sympathy. When she looked at him he could tell she was looking into his weaknesses. “Don’t worry, the trip from here to your new room isn’t too far.”

It seemed she had no intention of answering his question, but it didn’t matter. He smiled cheerfully at her as she then stepped back to push him along the walkway. He couldn’t truly make out how tall the building was, but his best guess was just below or just above ten stories with this floor being somewhere near the bottom. He was guessing they were underground since this building had no windows seemingly anywhere in sight and all the UV grade bright emergency panels that were placed along the walls, dimmed now since it seemed to be nighttime. There were no clocks, and any outline of a door he could see had some sort of coded panel attached to it. They were fully immersed in this world that this ‘group’ had created for their prisoners.

He still was not fully convinced that this situation was the work of Shinichi Tsukumoya, but mostly for personal reasons, namely the very thought of being important enough to do this to. 

His arms and legs were hurting as he held them to himself. His leg was folded over the other which was a painful process but something he did on a regular basis both out of habit and out of a need to reassure himself that the pain was real. In truth, everything had been hurting for a very long time, even before this. He chuckled with the pain under his breath. Shinichi asked him if he was okay and he elected to ignore her.

Before he’d been captured, he’d been on the run from a few people who wanted to get revenge on him. He’d revealed their crimes, hidden some of his own, and extorted others in order to be as safe as possible. He had an honorable bodyguard who he had recruited in this way, and quite a few people under his employment were similar. None of them were loyal to him. None of them would work very hard to find him, especially if he was overseas. It would take a miracle and a half to find a way out of this.

His fatigued mind was already halfway convinced to continue inside this prison for a bit. Maybe he really wouldn’t mind being a doll if these people were interesting. He would prefer not to be fondled and crooned over by a childish woman, or harassed by a very aggressive (and familiar-looking) man, and whatever role this other woman was trying to play, but still the idea of being kept and ‘fixed’ was in a plain word, bewitching the part of his mind that had been so self-destructive for so long.

And he couldn’t deny that a part of himself knew he deserved this. Maybe he’d earned being tied down and knocked around a bit. Nothing this exciting had ever just _happened_ to him before after all. He had always made arrangements whenever someone elected to kidnap him. For something so unexpected to happen right out from under him was unprecedented. 

This fact of his life was of course, as all things, by his own design.

Izaya was barely conscious for their ride on the spacious elevator that was perfectly circular in shape. He felt nauseous and he had to hold his head down and cover his eyes. Shinichi put a hand on his back in a soothing motion.

“It’ll be a few moments.” she said as he continued to ignore her and she continued to let him get away with it. Perhaps she was meant to be the aspect of this “rehabilitation” which he was meant to take his frustrations out on; his own personal punching bag. Maybe that’s why she wasn’t dressed as anyone in particular. So that he wouldn’t have any emotional attachment whatsoever. 

Emotions? Izaya paused at his own thoughts and looked down at his trembling hands. Was he… emotional at the sight of Namie? Did he miss her?

He shook the thought down as soon as it arrived. No. It just triggered his memory, as Tsukku-chan had said. They were only meant as a manipulation tactic. One that he had fallen for in his discombobulation. It would obviously take some getting used to before he could fully allow himself to be unaffected. It was simply a chemical reaction after all. And Shizu-chan…

Izaya looked up right as the door to his room was opened by a keycard Shinichi slipped into a slot.

No.

Shizuo Heiwajima. He was, as he had always been, a different case entirely. Izaya responded not out of emotions like fear for someone like Shizuo. When he looked at that person who had been impersonating him he didn’t see a person, nor did he see a monster.

Instead…

“Here you are!” Shinichi said loudly, and in his ear so he had to break from his thoughts to look at her. She was grinning at him from ear to ear. 

Izaya met her stare with a gracious lack of enthusiasm, but then he smiled calmly. “I see that. Thank you.”

He drew his gaze to this suite which was apparently to be his quarters for the perceivable future. There was a bunk bed on the first floor, which mocked him, along with another bed at the top of the loft. It was pretty clearly furnished for three people since it was probably much more spacious than other prison ‘cells’, and it was well-heated. A few of those bright lights (Izaya was guessing they were UV) panels on the wall, which Shinichi had dimmed as she pushed him inside and up the ramp, passing a sitting area and a small circular table with a deck of cards and box of checkers laid out. There was even a TV, though Izaya doubted it was for more than DVDs and music players. 

“It seems I’m not simply a prisoner but an honored guest,” Izaya said, sounding like he’d swallowed a cup of soured milk. “I would be flattered, but given the circumstances I hope you’ll understand.”

“Oh come on!” Shinichi replied cheerily. “Don’t you live for this sort of thing? I bet you’re super excited inside!”

Izaya narrowed his eyes at her. Just what kind of person was this blank slate woman supposed to be?

“Ah, so I guess you also know a lot about me,” Izaya said, keeping his voice amicable and completely against the fact that this woman was his captor, “Are you one of the Shinichi Tsukumoyas I’ve ‘spoken to’ before then?”

“Nope!” she replied, apparently fine with answering questions now. “I’ve never met you. In chat or in person before now. It’s a pleasure.”

“Likewise.” Izaya sighed, “I do look forward to our time together.”

“As do I. You’re quite a legend around these parts you know.”

“Is that so? You’d think you’d all have something better to do than babysit lil ole me me. I’m honored.” Izaya was scanning the available board games and noticed the absence of a chess board, shogi, or reversi. His mouth drew into a thin line.

“Now that’s the spirit!” she gushed, placing a hand on his head patronizingly. “I knew you’d get into it eventually.”

Izaya smiled bitterly, casting a dubious glance at the nightstand beside the bed where a tablet computer sat with a lit up screen and what looked to be a list was being shown. “How can I get into ‘it’, when I still have little to no idea what ‘it’ entails?”

“Oh don’t worry!” Shinichi reassured him. “You’ll find out soon enough!”

Izaya huffed. If there was anything he hated it was being completely left in the dark about something. Which, admittedly, was something Shinichi Tsukumoya would know. 

“Now then, would you like your overview of the rules now or after you rest?” She stood directly in his sight and held out her hand as if he were to take it. Izaya just stared at her open palm. Her skin was smooth and well-manicured, and starch white. When he looked back into her eyes she was beaming at him, awaiting his response with bated breath so she could continue her spiel.

“Now please.” Izaya sighed, “I’d rather not be rudely awakened and harmed for violating one of these said ‘rules’ on accident.”

Sounded typical. If he was to live life within a prison then it only made sense that he had a set of restrictions placed upon him. She removed her hand from his face to take up the tablet laying in front of him and handing it to him. His eyes adjusted to the bright screen after a moment, needing to squint a bit since his eyes had been in dim lighting. He read over them once and sighed:

  * _You must follow your schedule._


  * You must accept all of the deals given to you.


  * You must give up the life you led in the “real” world. It has been nothing but cruel to you.


  * You must have rehabilitation from both sides of the “Coin” each week. Failure to accept rehabilitation from either party will result in a “punishment” designed specifically to you to supplement the discipline or disciplines you lost out on.


  * There’s no need to want for anything. You have everything right here if you simply ask. 


  * You must leave yourself behind. Give up on that person. Be who we want you to be.



“I can’t possibly fathom how Shinichi Tsukumoya could come up with something so pretentious when all I’ve ever been told by them is how like that I am.” His eyes bored over the screen as though he’d simply read the weather. 

Shinichi chuckled. “I suppose we’ve had you fooled then, huh?”

Izaya studied her carefully before regarding the rules again. On the next page of the screen he had access to a map of the floor he was being kept on. There was a cafeteria a small distance away as well as a library and exercise facility. He whistled low.

“Wow, it seems I don’t have to worry about anything here do I? Food, exercise, entertainment. My day-to-day life has been completely thought out for me. What a dream come true.”

He meant it fully sarcastic but Shini-san looked as though she fully believed him, looking very pleased. 

“You have always struck me as the type who likes to be kept on a schedule. Just like a fickle cat,” she giggled and before he knew it she was reaching out and caressing his face. He froze completely. “While washing your face earlier, your skin was so smooth and well-tended. All of the soaps we had imported here for you to use are so fancy too. You’re like a little doll, Izaya. Don’t worry now. We’re going to take good care of you!”

The most ominous chill ran up his back as she spoke in a sickeningly soothing voice. “Washing my face?” Izaya asked, keeping his voice steady but it became even more difficult when her dulled out grey eyes met his. “You mean… while I was unconscious.”

He didn’t state it like a question because he knew it wasn’t one.

“Mmhmm.” Shini-san regarded him fondly now, much like Tsukku-chan had. If Izaya had been any semblance of ready for bed before, he didn’t want to take his eyes off of this woman for a moment. Izaya couldn’t even play it off, just how much it disturbed him to think of being handled in this manner, even while unconscious. But, perhaps it was a very human desire to want to treat something dear in a childlike fashion. In its own charming way, Izaya could see humanity in childhood and its norms. Unfortunately, Izaya still really wasn’t as fond of children's behaviors as he was with adults.

This was fine, his mind told him forcefully. He was okay. He would not be destroyed by this. He’d had his body completely wrecked, leaving him chair-ridden, and with a mind telling him he was constantly in pain and he still had not broken. Being treated this way now was not going to be his end point. In fact, he thought he should be grateful. The life he had been living was beginning to get rather dull anyway, as Tsukku-chan had said. Maybe he really was wasting his potential. Maybe he could take advantage of this group claiming to be Tsukumoya and their unusual obsession with him. 

It would be fun. It would be the most fun he’d had in ages.

He released an unsteady exhale. 

“Yes so… now what?” he asked her quietly.

“Oh, you have no questions about the rules?” 

“Just one. What is the ‘Coin’?”

“Ah yes that. Well, you have already had a semblance of a taste of it. Are you sure you’d like me to explain or would you like to be surprised?”

Izaya honestly didn’t care. He forced a measly smile. “Whatever you think is the most fun.”

“HA!” she laughed, “Well I suppose you’ll have to wait just a little bit longer then, huh?”

“A coin is a two sided piece that is usually part of a game of chance,” Izaya pondered out loud, speaking in a dull voice as he stared at the bed beside him with a glazed look in his eyes, “So I imagine… it will have something to do… with being tortured.”

There was a soft silence, and Izaya knew then that he’d hit the nail on the mark. He sensed a movement in front of him and found an outstretched hand in front of his nose. 

“First deal: I can help you get into bed or you can get into it yourself. Which deal will you take?”

Izaya stared at her hand then up at her. So, this was the beginning, he thought warily as he quirked a tired smile. His mind was a bit too noisy for him to enjoy the novelty of it being something so simple. What would be the consequence of him accepting the help of his captor? What would be the consequence of not? He could ask, but he had the distinct feeling that this first ‘deal’ was some sort of test. 

He reached out and grabbed her hand.

She hooked her arm under his armpits and helped him to stand, which was very painful. It was painful on a regular basis, but it seemed he hadn’t slept properly or eaten anything in quite a bit of time now, so his body was more sensitive to strain. This woman slid him under the soft covers of this bed and tucked him in rather neatly.

“I know you’re probably hungry so we’ll eat right after your nap, alright? It’s your first day so the schedule is a little off.”

“Of course.” Izaya agreed easily as he stared up at her from flat on his back and hating the way this level of vulnerability felt. He was used to looking up at the people who worked for him, who were people that hated him. He knew nothing about these people before him, who had every intention to torture him and raid his mind, which he was powerless to. And although it hadn’t been confirmed yet, the presence of drugs already in his mind made him feel sure that he would be forcefully medicated.

“Just how long have I been under your care?” he couldn’t help but ask this one question, even though she was surely to ignore this one as well.

She smiled down at him. “Long enough to miss you.”

How ominous. He smiled uneasily as he pondered what that could mean. Had they induced him into a coma? What time was it anyway? It didn’t feel as though he’d lost any weight yet at the same time he had no recollection at all of how he’d been kidnapped. It was as though he’d slipped into a peaceful sleep one night and awoken in a house of mirrors. 

“Your mind looks quite busy,” she commented with a smile, “Try to relax and get some rest, okay? There’s always a transitionary period for these things.”

She walked away from his line of vision and he heard the wheelchair he’d been using being moved to a corner of the room. It wasn’t as though Izaya couldn’t walk anywhere, but it would be very difficult and painful for him to go anywhere without assistance. He could already sense that bringing and taking away his wheelchair would be a strong source of power from them- he’d grow to rely on these people which would make it even harder to figure out a way to escape. 

If he even wanted to escape.

Izaya was staring up at the ceiling until he wasn’t. He looked out in front of him where a strange woman was sitting cross legged on his torso, so light it was almost like she was barely there. 

Her face was familiar, or rather, her head was, as was her body; the two were completely separate entities. Celty’s head sat in the hands of Celty’s body’s. She was wearing her armor, which made Izaya think that she should have felt much heavier; but then again she was a monster so who knew if she held any weight to her at all?

“You’re finally getting what’s been coming to you, Izaya Orihara.” Celty’s booming voice, which he’d only heard aloud a couple of times, echoed in his ear, “After all these years, you’re finally being served the punishment you’ve earned after everything you’ve put humanity through. You will die here.”

Izaya grinned at that. “Ah, so then with me gone was Ikebukuro finally at peace? Did you and Shinra find the peaceful daily life you both yearned for? I never looked into it to find out you see.”

Which was true. Izaya had completely cut ties and contact with everyone in Ikebukuro- well, he’d exchanged a few emails with Mikado Ryuugamine, but those were inconsequential and never for the sake of gaining information. 

“Mikado Ryuugamine almost died because of you,” Celty accused him, regarding him with a cold, indifferent expression on her face being held up by her head. He chuckled slightly as she voiced his thoughts as they popped into his head, “You tricked him, just like you tricked many others. You treated us all like expendable play things for your own amusement. And you had the audacity to call Shizuo Heiwajima and I monsters? You’re the real monstrosity.”

Izaya laughed at her, “Well, does it make you feel any better that I’m getting my just desserts? I sold the names of runaways and immigrants many times to be victims of human trafficking only to have you rescue them for me just so I could watch. Luckily for them, they had a monster looking out for them.”

“It’s perfectly reasonable to expect that no one would want to come and get you. You built this world around you and made yourself detestable to any and everyone.” Celty spat, her head’s eyes and mouth opening wide, though it remained expressionless and Celty’s tone of voice stayed the same only louder. “You deserve every bad thing that happens to you, Izaya Orihara. You have earned… your end.”

“I… deserve this.” Izaya repeated softly. “I’ll… probably die here, and no one will ever know.”

  
  


Izaya awoke with a shallow exhale. The ceiling was dark and uninteresting. He didn’t feel at all rested. He didn’t move his head to check if there was something on his chest, because he knew. It had all been a dream.

It wasn’t like Izaya was plagued daily by nightmares or anything of the sort, but he had grown to expect a ghost or two of the past coming to visit him and remind him of his failures. When they came, they were not infrequent. Most of the time it was Celty Sturluson in her complete Dullahan form, which he assumed was some residual curse she had left him with after saving his life. Sometimes however, he was also surprised to find others visiting his dreams: Mikado Ryuugamine, Shinra Kishitani, even Anri Sonohara on an occasion or two. 

Maybe somewhere deep down, Izaya Orihara was capable of feeling guilt for the things that he had done and the things that he did. Or maybe he was just desperate for someone to talk to. Either way it would be fitting, and either way there was no reason for him to feel sad, right? Celty often came into his dreams to tell him how much he had royally screwed up in Ikebukuro. Her knowledge of the details back then was always scary accurate, although sometimes she would accuse him of things that he definitely hadn’t done, but had been accused of by others.

_“Isn’t it so sad?”_ Ms. Tsukku-chan’s words from not that long ago repeated in his mind. Already, it seemed the torture had begun. _“How you tried so hard to reach immortality, supposedly take credit for all these events that happened in Ikebukuro around the time of your and Shizuo Heiwajima’s fight? And yet, it all fell apart right there at the end. You were rejected from Ms. Sturluson’s Valhalla. You tried to finally put an end to your all time enemy and you failed spectacularly.”_

It wasn’t as though she was sharing information with him that he didn’t already know. He had always kept the truth at arm’s length while he festered in the lie. It didn’t make much of a difference anyway. So he did do one thing but hadn’t done the other. In his eyes it didn’t matter if he was unjustly hated or showered with misguided love. He chose this twisted life.

And now the twisted life was choosing him. 

Izaya sighed and smiled. This was fine. Everything was fine.

“Ah, you’re awake ahead of schedule,” a voice from beside him said pensively, “You should sleep for at least another several minutes.”

She was in a disguise, which she fussed with somewhere beside him. Her voice was soft and feeble. A voice he had only heard directed at him a handful of times, and had spoken to in a chatroom what felt like a lifetime ago. 

So it would seem this person would also be a stirrer of his memories. Izaya glared over at the woman disguised as Anri Sonohara, and quickly twisted his face into a smile.

“Really now Shinichi-san, do I have to make myself go back to bed? I’m just so excited for what’s right here in front of me. You all just keep throwing me curve balls I’m not expecting.” he eased himself into a sitting position, “Now, I already had a difficult time processing the reasoning behind Namie, but now Anri Sonohara? I guess it can’t be helped, since there are so few humans who are significant individuals to me, but surely you all know how I feel about that little girl.”

He had to continuously remind himself to speak English as he had been ordered to. It would be difficult not to hesitate on some of the words, even if he _was_ fluent, since he wasn’t used to speaking it aloud every single day. However, he woke himself up with a pinch to his own hand and he was able to speak clearly.

She was fixing her cropped hair and adjusting her glasses from outside of the bathroom door. There was a chair beside the bed where Izaya assumed she’d been sitting not long ago. She took a moment to answer him as she dusted off the outfit she was wearing. Just like the other two imposters, her body language and appearance were similar but not identical to Anri Sonohara’s. Izaya was very attuned to human habits and tells, which is why he was so susceptible to this tactic. He knew people too well, studied them like he was studying a piece of art, which to him they all were. Human beings were his life’s passion, it was only natural that he felt an odd sense of deja vu. 

Not that he considered Anri Sonohara human.

“When in our guises you should address us as the persons we are dressed as,” she told him very plainly, “And I’ll have you know that Anri Sonohara is a young woman now.”

She turned to him and bowed. Probably the most Anri Sonohara-like gesture she could have done. Izaya couldn’t hide his disgust, but then he laughed. 

“Oh would you look at that, it’s like only yesterday I was scaring her out of her stupid wits at the hospital. She’s not an intimidating figure to me at all. I loathe her.”

“Do you?” she asked, “Loathe her?”

Izaya glared at her. _This_ was bound to be something, he thought in annoyance.

“Aren’t you all supposed to be experts on my feelings and the things I say? I believe I’ve said time and time again, especially to Shinichi Tsukumoya, who I find is and isn’t a monster.”

“Oh I know what you’ve said in the past Izaya,” fake Anri said as she straightened her back and stared dead on at him with such a determined expression that Izaya just wanted to grab the tip of her nose and twist. “I just don’t believe you at your word.”

“Ah! So you all know me so much better than I know myself. Yes, of course, I see! I, who have always been candid when it comes to my opinion on something, obviously don’t know what I’m talking about when I say I don’t like someone.”

“We both know that you’re a liar Izaya. We know that you share half truths and spread lies just to see what will happen. And we look at all your past behaviors and all we see is someone taking out all his anger on those that remind him of the person he hates most.”

Izaya scoffed. They really had a backwards logic if this was how they thought. “Really now, do I really seem that obsessed? While I definitely see the similarities between Anri and… _him_ , Sonohara is also a monster through and through! She possesses humans, takes control over them and…”

“I wasn’t talking about Shizuo.” she interrupted him briskly in that small voice of hers. “We don’t think that’s the person you most hate.”

Izaya and she held eye contact for a moment. Ah. He could see where this was going. He didn’t reply. He wasn’t going to have such an exhausting conversation with someone dressed up like someone he didn’t even like.

There was a soothing hum resounding from the tablet on the nightstand beside him and immediately she set back to attention, smiling kindly at him in a way that Anri Sonohara simply would never do. 

“Ah your time is up. Time to get up for the day Izaya Orihara.”

Izaya smiled. “My orientation day?”

She didn’t answer his question. Instead she said, “There’s something very important that we need you to do for the beginning of your rehabillitation.”

She brought him a light breakfast, an American style one with bacon and toast. She offered him a deal to feed him which he joyfully declined. She sat beside him and watched as he ate just as calmly as he could manage, shooting her a hateful smirk as he went. 

He tried not to think about his dream. 

When he was done eating, she offered to help him shower, which he also declined. The shower was also American though, which meant he had to be standing for most of it. 

Izaya was not paralyzed from his injuries. He could still get around a little ways and hold himself up on his legs just fine, but it was painful. He sighed with discomfort as he used his weak arms to lean against the shower wall into the spray. The soap they had left out for him was a brand he used regularly. It reminded him of earlier when his caretaker who was also an imposter mentioned washing his face for him. 

He scrubbed his face viciously. 

As he staggered out in the robe he’d been provided, Shini-san held out an object, which he immediately flinched back at. It was a knife, he realized after closer inspection, and he sat down in the wheelchair before he took a close look at it.

“Call us sentimental, but we just don’t think you’re fully dressed without one of these, you know?”

“Providing your captive with a weapon?” Izaya said, still letting her hover in front of his face with it non-threateningly. “You people either have great confidence that I won’t kill someone to escape or you're some kind of inhuman beasts.”

He studied her face rather than the knife as he said so, which only made her smile the more. Anri Sonohara was smiling at him.

“You don’t have it in you to kill anyone by your own hands, Izaya Orihara. This is just for the novelty of you and your old weapons. And, if you must know, some of the prisoners here might make light of you being the way you are.”

The way he was. Izaya’s eyes narrowed. “And? What are the conditions of my keeping of this little switchblade?”

“Oh no deals!” Shini-san said quickly. “This comes with our care over you. Think of it like…”

“A doll’s accessory?” Izaya drawled as he took it and examined it carefully. It had been a while since he’d properly held one of his knives. This one was a similar style, and the blade was unique, but the overall quality of the make was mediocre at best. He scoffed under his breath.

“I was going to say, ‘a comfort item’, but I suppose that works too. After all, along with caring for you day to day, I’ll also be in charge of protecting you.”

Considering the size and prowess of his previous bodyguard Izaya was far less than enthused. To think someone who put up a front of such laid-backness was supposed to replace the no-nonsense style of protection he’d hired in the past. Even when he lived in Ikebukuro, the Dragon Zombies were highly professional and definitely earned their paychecks- aside from getting beaten up by Slon and allowing him to be kidnapped that is. 

“I better not make you mad then, should I Shini-san?” he said snidely as he tucked the knife into his robe pocket. 

“Call me Anri, please.” she said, worrying her brow as if to remind him who she was supposed to be playing. “And you know you’re going to have to get dressed, right?”

Izaya stiffened before tilting his head forward and starting to laugh. 

“So then, here’s the deal: do you want me to help you or not?”

  
  


The outfit he wore was of that same insulated material as before. He only had Shini help him into the pants, after agonizingly struggling into the underwear and pulling on the shirt. Lastly came the fur lined cape, which she fastened around his shoulders snuggly as though he were just a little kid going to play in the snow. 

She pushed him out and into the hall in the direction of the cafeteria he had seen on the map. They walked right past it and towards the library, which Izaya’s wheelchair had some trouble getting into, snagging on the door stop and onto some very ugly carpet. It was a musty little room, bigger than he initially thought, and stacked to the ceiling with bookshelves.

They pushed past everything until they arrived at a new location entirely, through a door into a deathly cold room, where two other figures were standing: on the left was Tsukku, still dressed as Namie, and on the right…

Izaya gripped the arm rests tentatively, which made his arms ache. The man who was impersonating That person was glaring at him with a likeness that was etched into his memory. He remembered the rage, the threat of strength behind those eyes; a level of belligerence which he had never once understood in his life. Truly, Shizuo Heiwajima was an enigma to him to this very day.

“Welcome Izaya,” Tsukku-chan said cheerfully, pronouncing his name exactly the way Namie did but speaking in fluent English otherwise. “You’ve come to attend your first session of the Coin. Are you excited?”

Izaya found his breath. “Ecstatic.”

Those eyes were intimidating him. He couldn’t think straight.

“Quit staring at him you’re making this ten times harder.” Shini-san complained beside him. “We get it, you’re very scary and powerful. Just look away for like five seconds why don’t you!”

“Ah,” he heard Shizuo’s voice, “Apologies.” 

And it was funny because… he’d never once heard Shizuo apologize. In well more than ten years knowing each other. It made him giggle under his breath, staring at the floor and seeing nothing. If the man was averting his eyes it didn’t really matter to Izaya, because he then looked up and stared past them into the space behind them, which was lit up like an interrogation room. Oh yes. This must’ve been where he’d been interrogated before; only now, there was a strange device sitting on the table rather than a typewriter.

“Alright then Izaya,” Tsukku-chan said kindly. “This is it. Your shining, character defining moment! You get to say goodbye!”

“Oh?”

She gestured to the device in front of them. “You know how in prison you get to make a few phone calls to people you know to come bail you out? Well, I thought it would be fun for you to do that here as, you know, an introduction into your daily life here.”

She said ‘daily life’ in a way that Izaya knew was said with purpose. He smiled smally. “Interesting.” Was all he had to say.

“Really? Just interesting? No clever little quip? Aww…” Tsukku-chan mockingly looked disappointedly at him.

No. Izaya truly didn’t. He did have half the mind to say something sarcastic like he thought this place was for rehabilitation, not meant to emulate an actual prison, blah blah blah, but… his defiant spirit felt sapped for some reason. When he thought about having to call someone he knew it didn’t fill him with any sort of hope or sense of longing. All he felt was dread.

“Who then, am I to call?” Izaya asked quietly instead. Shini-san apparently caught on to his feelings and was staring sympathetically at him with Anri Sonohara’s face. Despicable. 

“Well! That’s for you to decide isn’t it?” Tsukku-chan said excitedly, and Namie beaming at him filled him with disgust. Keeping his eyes up in their general vicinity was hard enough as it was since he kept seeing black, white, and yellow in his peripheral vision. “I have a list of who would be appropriate of course. The police naturally are out of the question. Anyone under your employment is also forbidden since we don’t want them to know you’re alive, or have a way of tracking you.”

“Why even risk it then?” Izaya asked genuinely. “You really think I won’t still try to ask for help, regardless of who picks up?”

Tsukku-chan smiled pleasantly at him. “No, I honestly don’t.” she said.

“Even if you do, it won’t matter,” That Man said and Izaya held back a flinch. “No one is coming to get you Izaya Orihara. Anyone who tries won’t find it worth it anyway. They’d end up spending way more than the likes of you pay them.”

Izaya released a shaky exhale. “W-What an eloquent threat. You really should work on your character studies if you want to talk at all like S-Shizu-chan. He’s not some mafia boss.”

Izaya knew it was petty, and unnecessary. He had always been the type to inflict suffering onto himself for absolutely no reason at all besides curiosity. He spluttered his way through it and immediately set his gaze on his feet. The two women turned to study his reaction as the man stomped his foot loudly in Izaya’s direction and Izaya flinched violently, yelping a little.

Tsukku-chan sighed loudly. “Really now, Shizu-chan,” she spoke to the man, “Don’t interrupt me while I’m talking please.”

“Apologies ma’am.” And Izaya wondered not for the first time if Tsukku-chan was most likely the one calling all of the shots. 

He still couldn’t wrap his head around why he’d been brought here. As a scapegoat of some kind? To ransom for money to one of his enemies? It really didn’t look like it was going to end up that way, and now he was thinking it all had to do with her strange infatuation with him as a person. He’d never had a stalker before, and he’d never known anything of her existence. If she really was Shinichi Tsukumoya, or perhaps impersonated them at some point, Izaya hadn’t ever caught on even remotely. With the amount of information they knew about him, Izaya knew they had to be professionals to some degree, he just wasn’t sure how much of what they said was true.

“Chop chop now Izaya,” she said, and Izaya realized she was motioning for him to stand. He stared at her. “Ah no, I guess it’s still a little too soon for that.” Laughing to herself she drew nearer to him and kneeled in front of him in a very condescending stance at his feet. She reached out her upward palm and scooped his resting arm off his chair; his left arm specifically.

“Ah, we’re doing this first?” he heard Shini-san, and Izaya could only stare as Tsukku-chan slid his sleeve back and above his elbow. Izaya met her stare and she said, “You made a deal to be helped earlier, so now this is the price for that. Your first dose.”

Dose? Ah, I see. So then…

“Do you remember what you asked me earlier?” The Man asked, stepping into his line of sight as Tsukku-chan was pulling out an abnormally large syringe which looked far too familiar in her hand. “About prodding you with needles and chemicals?”

Izaya met his eye warily in favor of resisting, since he really didn’t see the point. He managed a weak little smile. “Vaguely.”

“Here is your answer to that,” this close, Izaya was positive that he wasn’t Shizuo Heiwajima; the eyes simply weren’t the same; not as beastly nor as earnest. But that didn’t make the fear constricting in his chest any less real. He doubted this person could lift vending machines over his head, or a steel beam. It was something about the anger that made Izaya want to curl away. 

And that was the moment Tsukku injected the needle. Izaya gasped a little. It sent a very sudden and warm feeling throughout his entire body as his insides rejected it. His face heated at an abnormally quick rate and the world blurred for just an instant. It wasn’t a sleeping drug though, a few seconds later and he could feel the numbing in his arm shooting through him like a stick of lightning. It was awful. He couldn’t breathe or think straight. He just wanted to scream.

“Ah, the initial burn will wear off in just a moment but do come over here won’t you?” Tsukku-chan said cheerfully, pushing him over to the device. She lifted his arm for him and put the handheld phone into his hand. It was a strange machine, and Izaya’s vision blurred as he looked over the excessive number of buttons, each with a different number planted on them. 

“You like games of chance, don’t you? Well, each of these buttons will connect you to a person you kn- well, that you used to know. That’s just the thing isn’t it? Around here, we are no longer who we once were. You read the rules right? You know what the last one says, right?”

As Tsukku-chan said, the initial burn was wearing off and now Izaya’s left arm was wired, somehow in agonizing pain while also shaking with adrenaline. It must’ve been some kind of steroid.

“S-So…” Izaya said, gritting his teeth and breathing through the pain. “This… is my rehabilitation.” 

“You’ve seen nothing yet,” the man told him flatly, “You haven’t seen even a modicum of what is to come.”

Izaya grinned, finding the pain laughable. Hilarious. It was all hilarious. This pain he felt, this growing burn in his chest…

Yes. He could deal with this. He took a deep breath. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Hold. This was his life now. 

This was what he’d been chosen to do. 

“Leave yourself behind. Give up on that person.” Izaya repeated what he remembered about the last rule. Such a dumb sounding rule he thought, but now he was beginning to think it would be essential. That’s right. Izaya Orihara was no longer the person he’d been three years ago, half a day ago, or even five seconds ago. Izaya Orihara was a slave of human desire. If they wanted to watch him writhe and suffer, then who was he to complain?

“That’s right,” Tsukku-chan soothed, and she pushed the device and its buttons closer to him as though enticing him. He leaned forward and examined each button carefully. He whistled. There were fifty-six buttons in total. “Call whichever one you’d like. I’d love to hear what you have to say.”

“Seems like a bit of a waste to create this randomizer dialer for lil ole me,” Izaya gushed. He held his pointer finger over the ‘five’ button before giving it a press. “Especially for one measly phone call.”

It started to ring. Before she stepped away to leave him in the space alone, she said, “I’ll let you know when you run out of total available calls.”

Izaya smiled. “How nice.” he said.

It rang. 

And rang. 

_And rang._

Izaya smiled to himself. Whoever this person was that he was from his past he was about to talk to: they were in for a rude awakening. He planned to be just as much himself as he could possibly be. 

It rang. 

It didn’t matter who it was, Izaya thought. Not even…

_“This is Heiwajima Shizuo. Call me back later.”_

He heard a tonal beep and his blood went cold. He slammed the phone down just as hard as he could. Behind him he heard Shini-san exclaim in her Anri voice.

“Oh dear, did you get an answering machine? Well it is a little late there so…”

“Who was it, Izaya? Did they pick up?” the man said, but not even his intimidating boom could substitute from the real thing.

“Ah,” Tsukku-chan said, “It was… ‘him’.”

Izaya glanced over to where they were standing in a trio looking over the stack of papers that was his file, only it was the neat bulleted list he’d seen before. 

“Shizu-chan, I thought I told you it wasn’t a good idea. And five is way too close to the top.”

“I disagree. I believe it’s always nice to throw in a wildcard for the subject to react to.”

“How is it a wild card if we know exactly how he’ll react?!”

Izaya couldn’t hear their banter, because he was too busy staring wildly at the phone in front of him, as though waiting for it to start ringing again, or better yet come to life on him. He’d been wrong. Not him. Anyone but him. But, he knew this wouldn’t be over until he picked up the phone and dialed someone so he did, but this time his eyes moved carefully along the buttons. He considered who might be on this list. He wondered if Mairu and Kururi were considered separately or if they were just one. Would they be near the top or the bottom? He would also prefer not to call someone like Shiki Haruya or Mikage Sharaku. All of a sudden he couldn’t think of anyone he’d be okay talking to. He sighed. 

Steeling his nerves and deciding he’d already found the worst one, he mashed the number one button with a faux confidence.

It rang. 

And rang. 

And rang. 

“Hello?”

Izaya’s throat was still closed up from the adrenaline, but even if it weren’t he’d still be unable to speak. This voice was one he hadn’t heard in nearly three years.

“Um hello? Are you aware that it’s two in the morning?” 

Izaya could imagine it easily. From his apartment, thousands of miles away Shinra Kishitani spoke into the phone.

“Uhhhh helloooo? I’m just going to hang up now.”

“So it’s you.” Izaya said softly.

“Hmm? Who’s this?”

“Eh? Is my voice really so hard to distinguish?” Izaya forced a little laugh into the receiver. “Some friend you are, forgetting the sound of my voice so easily.”

There was a very brief moment of silence, and Izaya almost felt a gush of fondness as he heard the sound of Shinra’s voice screaming into the phone.

“Ehhhhh?? Izaya, is that you? Orihara Izaya?!”

“The one and only.”

“Whaaaaat?! It’s been nearly three years! Just what on earth trouble could you have gotten into that you’re calling me for? Are you bleeding on the side of an abandoned road? Could you have returned to the city and are being chased by Shizuo? Oh what could it be, I wonder!”

All of Izaya’s sentimentality faded in an instant. He held the phone away from his ear, agitation growing at the sound of Shinra’s senseless chatter. 

“Well then, what could my dear friend be calling for? Well?”

“I’ve called to tell you goodbye.” Izaya said flatly.

“Oh? After all this time?”

“This time is different,” Izaya sighed. “This time it’s really the end.”

He didn’t expect the pause, but it was surprisingly refreshing. 

“Oh really?” Shinra’s voice sounded suspicious. “Is this your way of telling me you’re back in the city? If you want to meet up, I’m afraid my schedule has been suuuuper filled up with all my dates with Celty.”

“As if I’d be bored enough to make plans with you,” Izaya snapped, “I’m not coming back to Ikebukuro. Even with my given circumstances I wasn’t planning on ever returning to Ikebukuro.”

He didn’t have a problem stating this fact, because it was true. Izaya had never planned to return to Tokyo, let alone Ikebukuro. 

“Ah I see,” Shinra hummed. “Well I suppose that is wise. The last time you were here you really almost died, you know? I haven’t heard from you at all so I thought maybe you’d…”

“What, that I died?” Izaya smiled. “You’re not too far off on that guess. In a way, I definitely have died. At least that’s how it was before now. Now, it’s going to be the absolute truth.”

“Huh? Wait a second, are you saying…?”

“Yep. I really am calling you from Death’s Row, Shinra ole pal. Thanks for not hanging up on me as soon as you realized who it was this time.”

There was that stunned and predictable silence. Izaya couldn’t help but grin at the thought of Shinra’s flabbergasted face. Ah, that alone made the call feel worth it. For the first time since his arrival he felt like himself. For the first time in a long time, things felt normal.

“Jeez Izaya, you must really be in trouble if you’re talking that grim. So? What did you do? Piss off the Russian Mafia? Are you being tortured for information? Ooh or maybe you’re being held by some underground Australian group!” he laughed to himself.

“Your attempts at a cute prediction are incredibly off. And I don’t know who my captors are,” Izaya lowered his voice, even though he knew it didn’t matter, “It’s not important though. I didn’t call to order a rescue.”

“Uh. Well yeah I’d hope that you wouldn’t be expecting one from me. It’s not like I can do anything to help you. And Celty, well. She’s been trying to cut back on the shady jobs she accepts-”

“I’m not interested in getting help from either of you.” Izaya interrupted him quickly. “There’s nothing to be done.”

“Whaaaat? You’re giving up, just like that Izaya-kun? That doesn’t sound like you. Although then again, getting captured on purpose in order to pull a quick scheme definitely sounds like you.”

“You’re obviously not hearing me.” Izaya told him, growing annoyed. “I called to say goodbye forever. Because it’s very likely that I’m going to die here.”

There was a pause. “No, I heard you the first time.” Shinra sounded a bit more somber now. “So… what do you want me to say? That I’ll pray for your immortal soul? You don’t even believe in God do you? No, even if you did, I know _I_ don’t. Unless you count Celty that is. And there’s really nothing to be done anyway, right?” Shinra laughed into the receiver. 

Izaya wasn’t sure what irritated him more. The thought that Shinra didn’t believe that Izaya was going to die or that Shinra did believe but he just didn’t care. Which was odd, since both of those things were fairly predictable possibilities from Shinra. He and Izaya had known each other for a long time, and likely knew the different sides to each other better than anyone alive- Izaya didn’t have anyone who knew him as well as Shinra did. And Izaya probably knew Shinra better than even his monster girlfriend did. He knew Shinra like the back of his hand and could easily guess how the other would react to things.

But even so, Izaya couldn’t deny that, coming from the only person in the world who knew him, hearing Shinra wave off his death sent a wave of bitterness through him not easily contained.

“I want you to tell my sisters this: stay away from my old offices. There’s some money set aside for them in case something like this were to ever happen to me, so tell them not to spend it all in one place. And if a tall man with a beard and suit approaches them offering protection tell them that he’s most likely okay. Also, tell your monster girlfriend I said thanks for pointlessly saving me three years ago. It only ended up being to both of our detriments.”

“What did even happen to you after your fight with Shizuo anyway? Were you in rehab for a long time? Me and Shiki-san have spoken on it a couple of times. We made a bet that it took you at least six months but I bet that it probably took more than a year just because of how cowardly you are, ha!”

Izaya’s grip on the phone was so tight that his hand was sending waves of pain up his entire arm, although maybe that was the injected drug in his veins. 

“You can both give your money away to charity then. Because I never recovered.”

“Wha-?! Were your injuries that bad?! I mean you definitely sound pained over the phone, but I just thought it was from…”

“Listen to me,” Izaya said flatly, and his eyes were staring straight out at nothing. “Sharaku Mikage. Make sure she also knows I’m dead alright?” Unless he actually ended up talking to her as well. I’m trying to talk to as few people that I know as possible.”

“Whoa whoa wait a second Izaya,” And for the first time, there was a pinprick of fear in his old friend’s voice. Worry perhaps? Couldn’t be. “You sound like… like you _are_ actually giving up.”

“A-And Yagiri Namie.” Izaya heard his voice trembling in his ear, but he didn’t let himself stop and think about that. “Tell her too. Those should be the only people that would need to know. For the rest, it should eventually get around to them. Go nuts and tell whoever you like really. I doubt it would’ve been much of a funeral ceremony.”

“H-Hold on a second!” Shinra stammered. “I don’t… I mean, this is a long to do list you’re giving me here!” 

“Just do it. It’s the responsibility you bear for making me be friends with you. Or, that is, I guess… formerly friends.”

Shinra had said once that even if Shizuo Heiwajima had killed him, that would only mean a free friend position for him. Now Shinra was free to do just that, even though after everything that had gone down in Ikebukuro, Izaya doubted that they were truly still friends at all.

“And Shinra?” Izaya added, his voice cracking just a little bit.

“Y-Yeah??” Shinra sounded like he was halfway distracted, maybe writing the names down of those Izaya had said. 

“I’m sorry.”

And with that, without even knowing himself what he was apologizing for since there was so much, Izaya Orihara said goodbye to his only friend in the world. He smiled when the phone slammed down. 

He was then met with a silence, followed by a resounding applause from the three people standing at a distance from him. His new keepers. Izaya convinced himself that for the moment, he could maintain his own privacy by keeping his face turned away from them. Like this, he could admit to himself that that was one of the most difficult things he’d ever had to do. He didn’t even know why he wanted Shinra to tell those people he’d stated specifically- in the moment he panicked and those were the people that came to mind. Four women, all of which probably hated him dearly. 

It made him smile to think of how they would all shrug it off just as Shinra did. But he didn’t have to worry about that anymore. Because as far as he was concerned, he no longer existed to anyone. He was dead in all regards. From this day forth, he would consider this place his purgatory and hell, forever relishing in whatever this world had to offer him. He’d never been asked to be anyone’s doll before, so he was honored. 

As long as he could exist he didn’t care, he told himself.

Whatever drug was currently shooting through his veins was also giving him a strange springiness to his legs and though planting his feet on the ground as he was doing currently hurt like a son of a bitch, he did it anyway. Before he knew it, he was standing. They clapped even harder for him at that.

“Ah yes, Izaya! I’m so proud of you! Leaving behind such a mysterious legacy for yourself. Yes, that’s quite fitting for you.” Tsukku-chan, of course, was the one to speak first. “What a great first day for you.”

“Ah yes, but this is only one side of the ‘coin’ that was mentioned in your rules, isn’t that correct?” Izaya rasped, gazing up at the dark, dark ceiling above him. He wondered if it really went that high up or if it was just an illusion. 

“That’s right,” Tsukku-chan said, grinning as he turned to her and she walked up to him, holding something in her hands. Ah. It was the pile of documents that had been typed up when he first got here. Now on evenly sliced sheets of paper. The margins were terrible and it was in a tiny font. She held it out to him to take, which he did with both hands, and studied the first page.

_The Life and Death of Izaya Orihara_

Izaya snorted. “You all are taking this far too seriously, don’t you think?”

“But don’t you find it necessary for a rebirth? I think you’ll find that, the life we have in mind for you is far better than the one you were slowly devolving into. I’d like you to give that a good read- I’m sure it will be both refreshing and cathartic for you. Maybe you’ll even learn something you don’t know.”

“Oh I’m sure that’s your plan.” Izaya chuckled darkly. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“Remember Izaya Orihara,” that man said, taking a few steps towards him, “You have become nothing. You are at an end. Everything that you are? Is part of us now.”

Izaya didn’t bat an eye at him this time, smirking and laughing in the man’s face. “You really do need to change impersonations soon, Imposter-san. There’s absolutely no way I can take you seriously using Shizu-chan’s face and voice to do everything.”

He tucked the file under his arm and eased himself back into his chair, laying back and trying to relax his body as best he could. He wasn’t worried, he told himself. Because Shizuo Heiwajima would never come here. And that’s what he could feel accomplished in. He smiled, and stopped listening as his captors again started bantering around him, answering occasionally with his usual quips, but relishing in that one thing. He was still thinking about it, even as Shini-san was rolling him out of the place and back to his room to spend the morning, starting his new routine.

Yes.

Of at least one thing, Izaya Orihara could be certain. Shizuo Heiwajima would never find him here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I can't fight this feeling.
> 
> It's not in my head.
> 
> And I know it was something I did, baby.
> 
> I can't fight this feeling.
> 
> I'm out of control.
> 
> Got to get back to the life that I know!"
> 
> Let's just leave Izaya there for the time being shall we? ;) We have somewhere else to go.


	4. The Peaceful Life of Shizuo Heiwajima

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shizuo was totally fine before this happened. His life was totally perfect! Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I don't know why, but I guess it's got something to do with you  
> To do with you  
> I was a faking alibi  
> Trading the truth in for a lie, oh  
> We were the essence of desire  
> And we're caught in the headlights"
> 
> Another song to set the Mood for you ~

Shizuo Heiwajima walked out of his apartment later than he usually did, and his building was at just the right angle that the morning sun shined on his floor directly into his eyes. 

Annoying. Everything was annoying in the morning. He grumbled under his breath and shuffled out, still half asleep. 

There was no getting around it. He’d slept like shit last night. And for a reason he’d prefer not to think about, but at the same time made it completely impossible not to think about. 

That… person…

Why the hell did he have to be brought up all of a sudden?

The city of Ikebukuro was peaceful- well, not exactly. The city was the same as it had always been. Inviting, mysterious… maybe even a little bit mischievous, though Shizuo preferred not to think about that aspect. Tokyo was the same as anywhere else- full of light and dark, good and bad people. It would be the same no matter where he went, not that Shizuo ever went anywhere. Shizuo liked the city. He liked the predictability, and the familiarity around him. It was where he was born and raised, and probably where he’d die. He wasn’t sure. But he didn’t know of anywhere else he’d rather be. The city may not have been perfect but it was where he called home. 

Shizuo bit his tongue. It was no use. He’d have to smoke before he went to meet Tom. He pulled out his carton and lit one up as he walked, which he really didn’t like to do but he was running late so he took the alleyways between buildings to avoid running any secondhand smoke onto other people. 

“That… fucking bastard…” Shizuo hissed under his breath. He had a nasty habit of muttering under his breath that he simply couldn’t stop. “Why’d he have to call me so late?”

Why did he have to mention that name? A name which Shizuo hadn’t heard from anyone in months. Maybe even years. It had been at least two and some change since he’d even seen this dirt bag, but still the sound of that name even being uttered was enough to set him off. He tried to keep his cool- really he did. But for that annoying doctor he called a friend to call him so late at night like that was…!

“Hello? What the hell do you want?”

“Shizuo! Hey, can you talk now?”

“No, I was sleeping.”

“Ehhh really? I thought you’d still be working at this hour, seeing as how you barely get paid anything. You wanna clock in all the hours you can, right?”

“Shut the hell up! And don't talk shit about my job like I’m poor, my boss is a decently giving person. I got home at like midnight and you’re not the only person who’s called me tonight, so what the hell do you want?!”

He’d also gotten a call an hour earlier from an unknown number. He could’ve sworn he’d set his flip phone to vibrate but the damn thing was so fickle sometimes. He didn’t try to call back but probably couldn’t even if he did since the number was an overseas call. Annoying. He hated spam callers.

“Ah, well. Do you have plans tomorrow? Time for us to just sit down and talk?”

“Uhhh I guess? Why are you calling right now if you want to talk tomorrow?”

“Oh. Sorry, it’s just…” Shinra sighed into the phone. “I was a little frazzled a bit ago, and Celty thought it might be a good idea to reach out to a friend about it. She’s really considerate like that. And since you’re one of my only two friends I figured…!”

Considerate, huh? Only if the asshole hadn’t called him in the  _ dead of night. _

“Yeah yeah I get it. Alright so Celty thinks I should listen to whatever problem you’re having. Sure. We’ll talk tomorrow. Now hang up and go the fuck to sleep before I decide to kill you.”

“We’ll go to Russia Sushi okay? I’ve got an errand to run there to be honest so it’d be more convenient for me.”

“Yeah yeah already now go to bed and leave me alone!” 

“Oh yes sir, absolutely!” Shinra said in a cheery, singsong voice, “Oh but Shizuo, can I ask you something real quick?”

“What is it?!” Shizuo snapped. 

“You haven’t had contact with Izaya Orihara recently, have you? Like you didn’t see him and then beat him into an even more mangled mess than before so that he would actually die this time, right?”

Shizuo’s blood ran ice cold before it ran boiling hot. 

“HAH?! Are you trying to piss me off at three in the morning?!?!” Shizuo demanded. “Like hell have I seen that bastard, and if he were dead you’d damn well know it!” 

Shizuo’s tiredness was worn off and replaced by absolute boiling rage that he hadn’t felt in ages. Two years, he was thinking? It was nearing the end of September now, so… roughly over two years. 

“Ah you’re probably right then,” Shinra sighed. “Sorry I know how much it boils your blood to talk about him. Maybe the fluctuation in blood pressure will help you to sleep better. Good night Shizuo!”

“Jackass, exactly the opposite is what’s gonna happen…!” Shizuo snapped as viciously as he could, but Shinra had already hung up. Fucking prick. 

Shizuo had been so taken aback by the mention of that guy’s name that he couldn’t go back to sleep at first. He was about to call Shinra back, chew him out, and demand more context, but he decided he’d rather kill Shinra when he had a little more sleep. He’d laid back down in his bed, phone turned off, and tried not to think about Izaya. 

Until he remembered the phone call he’d received, which had woken him up in the first place. He shot back up and turned his phone back on, nearly crushing it in his rush to get it on. 

The missing phone call was there, some unknown number with mysterious origins. Come to think of it, sending him a spam call sounded exactly like something the flea would do. 

That’s right. The flea bag. 

He couldn’t simply say he hadn’t thought about him at all since he’d been driven out of the city- Shizuo saw to that. It had been one of the worst nights of his life. He’d been damn near suffocated by fire and poisonous gas that had been released into the building he had climbed in an effort to beat that guy into the ground for everything he’d done. He remembered a flea hopping around on the steel beams of that incomplete building and wishing so badly he could shoot heat seeking missiles from his fists, drawing in on that shifty bastard until they finally made contact. He’d never been so ready for a fight in his life. He’d never come so close to dying either.

He’d saved up all of that anger and hatred of his for that fight. It made him feel like shit at the end. And he didn’t even get to know if the bastard had survived after all. He thought maybe it was okay if Izaya Orihara lived in the end, since it meant that neither he nor Vorona were murderers, but now he wished he had. Then he wouldn’t have to be thinking about this. In fact, he wished he had his dead corpse right there in front of him in his apartment so that he could know without question that the man was dead. He could give it a quick overview, confirm that it was indeed him, and promptly toss him into the nearest garbage truck for their next delivery. 

Why the hell did Shinra have to mention that name? What did it mean for Ikebukuro if Izaya Orihara returned to the city again? He really didn’t want to overthink it at this time of the night, but his thoughts swam. He hadn’t screamed Izaya’s name at the top of his lungs in two years, which almost felt weird. It was like one day that person just left without a lingering trace.

As much as Shizuo hated to admit it, Izaya’s departure hadn’t changed much as far as the level of trouble he encountered went. He still had to punch people on the regular. He got mad on a pretty steady basis and the amount of property damage he was causing was only mildly better. Truthfully, Shizuo didn’t feel he’d changed at all in three years. 

The biggest, and best, of the changes he had made were that he no longer had to worry about a certain pest wandering into his city, making a ruckus of things, manipulating kids and teens, and spreading a bunch of bullshit rumors. Shizuo couldn’t stand guys like him. With their smug smiles and their smart ass attitudes, he really felt he could explode thinking about him. 

Shizuo laid back down and tried to get some sleep, telling himself that the spam call was just a coincidence despite his instincts telling him otherwise. He found himself more often than not relying on his instincts to make a proper decision for him, since they never steered him wrong. 

When he finally did sleep, he predictably didn’t get an ounce of anything decent and his dreams were weird. He dreamed he was surrounded by a solid black tower of the kanji for “Orihara Izaya” which was slowly closing in on him and as he stopped running, felt the air being drained away. Then right there towards the end it caught on fire, which left Shizuo feeling even more uneasy when he woke up. 

He blamed Shinra entirely and completely for his lack of sleep, and promised him a quiet punch on his way to meet up with Tom. But still, it meant he would have to wait that long to know just what Shinra was talking about. 

Tom greeted him in his usual manner and Shizuo replied with a distracted yeah, which seemed to be good enough. Sometimes they didn’t talk all that much in the mornings. He would give him the background information behind whoever they were collecting from and then they could walk in silence for a good hour without saying much of anything. It left Shizuo with a lot of time to think, which he often liked.

He didn’t like it so much this morning.

“You seem kinda worn down. You alright?”

Shizuo grumbled under his breath, “Yeah. Just slept bad I guess.”

“Ah that sucks. Bad nightmares?”

“Yeah exactly,” And just like that Shizuo’s expression darkened as he recalled it all at once, being encircled by that name; that ugly and weird name that always tasted like venom on his tongue. “It was really stupid too, so it’s even more annoying that it ruined my sleep.”

“You do eat a lot of sweets throughout the day,” Tom noted, more sociable now that he realized Shizuo needed a little bit of distraction. Tom was pretty good at picking up on that sort of thing, “They say they can give you weird dreams if you eat too many before you sleep.”

“Oh yeah? Maybe that’s what it was.” Shizuo agreed. It was possible that he had in fact just eaten too many sweets and that gave him shitty dreams, but he knew that wasn’t the reason he had slept badly. 

He couldn’t help but know. 

“Here why don’t we stop for breakfast?” Tom offered, “It’ll help take your mind off things.”

Shizuo let his annoyance fester a bit longer before he settled on pushing it to the back of his mind, at least for now. Over the years he had gotten good at pushing things that bothered him away for later. He was the perfect bomb, collecting fuel in steadily until he was ready to explode. So just like that, he forgot about his dream and focused on his day with Tom.

Tom ended up being right. They got breakfast at a close by fast food restaurant and managed to visit five clients before midday, which they were able to successfully collect from. Shizuo had been working with Tom now for at least a few years now. It was the longest job he’d ever had, and he couldn’t deny that he felt proud of that fact. When he concentrated on doing a good job collecting for his boss, Shizuo felt like his life wasn’t that pointless after all- mostly because he was working with a friend. The job details in general were pretty shitty, and though he liked his boss as a person there was no denying that the whole business was shady as hell. Even so…

It wasn’t like Shizuo had been able to fit in much anywhere else. And he’d found he could tolerate doing shitty work as long as the people he hung around with were decent. He also got to roam around on his feet a lot and see the city. He couldn’t imagine himself ever working a cushy office job or being a salaryman. 

Still, Shizuo couldn’t help but wonder sometimes if debt-collecting was all he’d ever be good for. What would he be doing now if his Senpai hadn’t come to him in his time of need?

“You okay? You look a little misty eyed.” Tom said all of a sudden. 

“Huh? Oh yeah. Just… sentimental today because of the bad sleep I had I guess.” Shizuo admitted with a long suffering sigh.

“You’re sentimental? Come on man, you’re not that old yet.” Tom joked with him, “Start getting sentimental when your kids are going to college, yeah?”

Shizuo huffed a fake laugh. “Yeah…”

“It’s getting kinda late. You ready to eat?”

“Yeah, preferably somewhere cheap,” Shizuo said, having already forgotten about his plans to meet with Shinra Kishitani. “I’m not really in the mood to go somewhere we’ll be recognized.”

“Yeah I can tell you’re on a short fuse today. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off after lunch so you can go home and rest? It might be good for you.”

Shizuo couldn’t stop the wave of guilt that washed over him at that. “I’ll… just see how I feel after I eat.”

Tom smiled at him like he knew what Shizuo was thinking. It was weird, Shizuo thought, knowing that there were people out there who understood his feelings, despite being so bad at expressing himself. 

That was when his phone rang again. He slowly maneuvered it out of his pocket and stared at the caller ID and he was reminded of the chain of events with infinite more clarity. “Shinra Kishitani” flashed on his phone as he flipped it open.

“Ah shit, hold on a second Tom,” Shizuo said quickly, “I just remembered I made plans. Can I actually take the rest of the day? This might be important.”

Tom seemed initially caught off guard but he gave Shizuo an understanding smile and a nod. “Go ahead, man. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I’m really sorry about this.”

“Don’t sweat it man. Hope you get it sorted out.” Tom’s smile was laced with understanding, but there was something there that Shizuo didn’t fully understand either. He didn’t have time to think about it. He started down the street in the direction of Russia Sushi. 

“Hello? Yeah sorry I’m on my way.” Shizuo said really quickly as he answered the phone. 

“Oh Shizuo!” Shinra’s voice was a tad breathless. “I’ll be there soon I promise! Just have to run a quick pit stop and then I’m there, I swear!”

“You’re late too?”

“Oh are you also running behind? HA! What a stroke of luck!” For someone who sounded so serious the night before, Shinra certainly didn’t act concerned about delivering whatever his news was. If that was the case, Shizuo wondered why he was even bothering. Come to think of it, any time Shinra wanted to talk to him about something it was at Shinra’s own apartment, so why were they going to get lunch? The sudden influx of questions annoyed him and he didn’t know if he would look like an impatient ass for asking so he just responded to what Shinra said.

“Yeah I kinda forgot we were meeting. I’m on my way now.”

“Okay great! See you in a minute then!” Shinra sang, and the other hung up on him. Shizuo scowled, glaring at his phone. Suddenly he wished he’d invited Tom along. At least Tom knew how to be considerate to other people and would understand Shizuo’s rage. Now his only distraction was gone. 

The inside of Russia Sushi was the same as always. It was a little busier than usual, with a handful of booths in the back filled and he could hear a celebration going on in the back room. How obnoxious to have a celebration in the middle of the day like that. Shizuo waved casually to Simon and the other guy and sat at the bar as he waited, teeming with annoyance at the chain of events leading up to this moment for him. At least the two Russian men seemed to feel his vibe and didn’t bother him much as he stewed in contemplation.

Most of the time Shizuo was able to ignore the rage he felt, choosing instead to let it fester inside of him. He chose to do this with a lot of things in his mind. Still, sometimes he couldn’t simply ignore it. He thought about the events in the past, recalled things that he’d done and regretted. Things that had happened to him that a normal human wouldn’t be able to simply walk away from unscathed. 

Izaya Orihara. That man. 

He thought about those kanji in his dreams looming over him, teeming with fire. It wasn’t like it was the first time Izaya had tried to set him on fire, nor was it the first time they’d tried to genuinely kill each other, but when he recalled it so vividly like that, it was as though no time at all had passed. In fact, if he were to ever see Izaya Orihara again, it would feel like no time at all had passed between them. He would aim to kill again. He was sure the other felt the same. Shinra’s question made him wonder if something bad was about to go down in Ikebukuro again. The last time it had, it had been really bad. A huge army of sword possessed freaks had targeted Tom because of him, and his old coworker Vorona had gotten mixed up in it. 

Vorona… another person he hadn’t seen in a long time. Because of him, she had almost become a murderer on his behalf.

If Ikebukuro was about to turn bad again… what was Shizuo going to do? 

“Shizuo!” Shinra’s voice followed by a light tap on his shoulder caused him to turn back suddenly, startled. 

“Jesus,” Shizuo gasped, taking in the rather odd sight of Shinra, dressed in his casual clothes. An ugly orange pintuck with khaki pants. He looked the other up and down. “That’s the ugliest outfit choice I’ve ever seen.”

He said it without thinking, trying his best not to immediately hop down Shinra’s throat for approaching him so casually. Shinra looked offended anyway. 

“How rude! I don’t get to wear casual wear every day you know. This is a very special occasion where I’m not on-call for whatever the mob needs! At least I know how to dress when I’m not on the job. Do you even own anything besides those bartender uniforms?!”

Shizuo turned away from him dismissively as he took a sip from his water. He didn’t order a soda because of what Tom said before about having too much sugar. “Shut up…”

“Wow, that was less angry than usual. Is something wrong?” Shinra took his seat beside him and leaned in close. Shizuo pointedly leaned away. 

“Would you rather I punch you in the face?” Shizuo inquired, and Shinra’s cheery disposition soured. “And what the hell do you mean ‘is something wrong’? You’re the one who asked me here!”

That’s right, he reminded himself, they were meeting up today so that Shinra could open up about something. Or something along those lines. Shizuo scowled and pointedly avoided eye contact.

“Ah right. Before that though, don’t you want to know what I was doing that made me so late?”

“Not really.”

“I was paying a visit,” Shinra announced, “To a rather random list of people requested of me by a person as their final favor. Two of them were family members, while the other was a woman who works at Akane Awakusu’s dojo.”

Shizuo’s eyebrow twitched as he listened to Shinra’s singsongy voice. He couldn’t deny that hearing the name of the Awakusu girl made him startle slightly. Just what kind of connection could Shinra have to that dojo? He’d also never heard of a doctor doing finishing favors for their deceased patients, but the thought of the gesture was nice. Then again, he frowned as he barely listened to Shinra continue, there was no way Shinra would ever be that nice without an ulterior motive.

“And the last one is someone who will be joining us in just a few minutes hopefully. So long as you can keep your cool that is.”

“The hell?” Shizuo gaped. “You invited someone else? Like Kyohei?”

“I can see why you might think that, but nope! You certainly don’t know this person.”

“Then why the hell are you introducing me to them when you literally just asked me here to talk?” Shizuo’s patience was clearly being further and further tested. Shinra had always had a knack for pissing him off, but never moreso than he had in the past twenty-four hours. “Why did you bring up Izaya all of a sudden?!”

Shinra’s smile wavered just slightly and he furrowed his eyebrows in discomfort. “That’s… Well that is to say… Look, the reason Celty wanted me to confide in you was because I had seemed so upset and she said that you might make me feel better. But, to tell you the truth, I don’t really know if I feel sad about it or not.”

“About what?” Shizuo seethed. 

“Izaya called me last night,” Shinra said, “And he told me he was going to die.”

Shizuo probably felt shock for less than a second. The world went silent and his face darkened into a dark shadow of a scowl. Shinra didn’t notice him contorting and Shizuo was silent as he kept listening.

“I think he was pretty serious. I’ve never known Izaya to simply joke on me about something so serious before hanging up. I mean, not something so serious related to him of course. Unless it’s his way of getting me to put my guard down. Well regardless! He just told me to let these four people know that he’s dead. His sisters, Mikage Sharaku, and…”

“You were running errands for Izaya?!” Shizuo demanded. “Why the hell would you do that?!”

Shinra gave him an awkward smile before shrugging awkwardly. “His sisters go to the same dojo as Sharaku-san, and they’re his family anyway. Not to mention, Celty said it would make me feel better if I went, and I have to admit I certainly don’t feel worse! Felt refreshing, like doing the laundry or taking out the trash.”

Shizuo’s entire body was quaking now, his teeth clenched so tight he couldn’t process Shinra’s joke. His entire body felt entirely too stiff. His mind was almost numbingly blank and yet it seemed like there was a buzzing all in his ears, even though he couldn’t make out anything besides what Shinra said. 

“And I actually already had plans to meet with this last person today since she works with my dad now, so I figure I might as well tell her as well. I mean, it isn’t hurting any of  _ them _ to know that Izaya’s dead right? At least, I’m sure Izaya was under that impression.”

“ _ Stop saying his name so casually _ ,” Shizuo snapped all of a sudden, turning to glare at Shinra with the most vehemence in his eyes that he probably ever had. The sheepish look Shinra had was not what Shizuo wanted to see. He didn’t see understanding in Shinra’s eyes at all when he looked into them; he never really had. Honestly he didn’t know how they’d stayed friends for so long at times. “That stupid name… still makes my blood boil.”

Shinra sighed, keeping a wary eye on him though he still seemed amused. “Jeez, still? You should really grow out of your phobia of hearing news you don’t like.”

“What I don’t get is why  _ I’m _ here. Did that fleabag tell you he wanted  _ me  _ to know too?!” 

“Hm? Oh no! Actually I wonder if I might be spiting him a little by telling you. Oh well!”

“You’re a piece of shit,” Shizuo told him flatly, “And a way worse friend than I thought. You think that fleabag was actually telling the truth about dying and yet you’re sitting there making jokes? That’s pretty scummy Shinra.”

“Huuuuuh? That’s so mean Shizuo! It’s not like I’m doing anything with malicious intent. It just worked out that way! I just wanted to tell you because I’ve been feeling so conflicted about it.”

“And so…” Shizuo’s eye was twitching, “You came… to confide in  _ me?! _ I hated him! I  _ hate _ him. It’s been fucking  _ fantastic  _ since he’s been gone, and to hear his name being brought up so suddenly around here sets my teeth on edge. Makes me want to tear apart every apartment building in Ikebukuro to find out where the hell he’s hiding.”

Because Shizuo  _ knew _ that fleabag had to be lying. Whatever bullshit he had fed to Shinra to make him believe had to be nothing more than his usual manipulative crap. Shizuo tried his best to keep his cool and not raise his voice since Simon and the other guy kept their watchful gaze on him. He wondered if Shinra knew they’d been listening too; not that Shizuo cared.

“Celty thought you could help  _ because  _ of your hatred of Izaya, Shizuo!” Shinra said cheerfully, but then he turned thoughtful as he prepared to go on another long and worthless rant, “You see… while I can’t say for certain that I feel sad, I can’t say that I don’t…  _ not  _ feel something. I mean, Izaya is Izaya. Oops! Sorry, he is who he is. But you know, we were friends for a long time! And I hadn’t heard from him in a while. I just felt… I don’t know, a little sorrowful by the way he sounded over the phone. Celty said I only feel bad for him because of what a good person I am, and that hearing about him from someone who knew how awful he was would make me feel better. Haha! I guess she’s still kind of bitter about him having her head. She’d never talk about another person so coldly.”

Shizuo listened intently and found his scowl greatly lessening the more that Shinra talked. It was starting to make sense why Celty had thought he was best for the job. He knew about that last bit from her, but it too made him churn up inside to think about Izaya Orihara, in his crazy monkey-like fashion, twirling around the room in a desk chair throwing Celty’s head up in the air like it was a volleyball. 

Suddenly, Shizuo felt significantly more calm.

“Celty’s right. Izaya was a scumbag.  _ Is. _ He’s probably not even dead, or even going to die. You know what a liar he is, right? You’re like the only friend he has, so you should know that.”

“Ah true! But it really did seem like he meant it.”

“Whatever.” Shizuo snapped, not used to talking about Izaya so casually and openly. He hadn’t even heard that name in conversation for the longest time and now Shinra was bringing him into a full blown discussion. 

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything too trivial,” a deep feminine voice rang from behind them. Shizuo turned with Shinra and they both met the bored eyes of a beautiful woman in a green sweater and skirt. “I find that a discussion between two men sharing lunch together is rather boring.”

“Ah!” Shinra said cheerfully, “Yagiri-san! It’s been such a long time. How’s the new job at Nebula going?”

“As boring as ever,” the woman said with a smile, but Shizuo could tell as he looked into her eyes that he’d never seen a more cold hearted woman- not that he minded, since he knew he probably looked just as cold. He drilled into each of their eyes before settling on Shizuo’s. “You. You headbutted my brother once and knocked him out. Don’t you know you could’ve seriously hurt him?!”

Shizuo gaped, a little taken aback by her sudden and sharp tone. He tried to think back to a time when he’d headbutted a guy that had her face. “Uhhh… sorry. I didn’t know.”

Her nostrils flared and then she turned her gaze on Shinra. “What is this neanderthalic man doing here for our business discussion? I’m not here to have a social gathering with you and the rest of your moronic friends.”

Shizuo wanted to say something but he was still a little too taken aback from being scolded; maybe he was even a little bit charmed. 

“Ah well, I also have some news for you, Yagiri-san.”

“And? That doesn’t explain why Shizuo Heiwajima is here. Just saying one unpleasant thing could cause him to tear a hole through one of the walls in this place.”

“Oy, don’t use my name to talk shit about me when I don’t even know who you are!” Shizuo complained halfheartedly, but the woman shot him a scathing look. 

“I’ll explain it all to you swiftly, but would you like to move this discussion into a booth? Shizuo, you don’t mind do you?”

Shizuo turned and saw Shinra looking at him earnestly. His friend was confiding in him, asking him for help. He looked between Shinra and this mystery woman called Yagiri. She must be the other person that the flea had wanted Shinra to convey his “news” to. Shizuo frowned and huffed, containing his anger. He wouldn’t let that fleabag win, whatever it was he wanted. To stir up trouble, cause Shizuo to go hog wild, it didn’t matter. Shizuo had been living a peaceful life up until this point and he was determined to keep doing so.

“Yeah sure,” Shizuo said, not letting on the turmoil that was going on in his mind. He turned to face Yagiri-san, “I realize you already know who I am, but I’m Shizuo Heiwajima.”

Namie rolled her eyes, and Shizuo felt one of the blood vessels in his head start to swell up. 

“I already know everything about you, Shizuo Heiwajima. Izaya Orihara told me everything I need to know.”

Shizuo clenched the countertop so hard that it caved in with a loud resounding pop. He heard a disapproving call from the back.

“Sorry, I’ll pay you back,” Shizuo called to them without feeling much of anything. He turned back to her and gave her a mirthless smile, “Who were you again?”

“I’m Namie Yagiri,” Yagiri said calmly, “Izaya Orihara’s former employee.”

“Ah,” Shizuo said with a half grunt, “Makes sense.”

And his brain reasoned that the last twenty-four hours was already some of the weirdest he’d ever lived, so whatever this is might as well happen. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No one is more impatient about the pace this is going than I am. Mein gott. The next chapter will be longer. And a little more intense. I mean, to be fair we just finished a pretty intense first few chapters so I guess this chill self-loathing-y and ruminatory stuff is like a decent reprieve? Anyway, I am so ready to get to That part and That part and just so many moments in this.
> 
> Aaaaaaaaaaaa I'm so ready.
> 
> Also that chapter summary is gonna apply to next chapter too only next chapter will be a M O N S T E R and then I swear. I SWEAR!! We'll start moving stuff along.


	5. The Steady Awakening of Shizuo Heiwajima

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shizuo's still wrapping his head around this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> " 'Cause the world might do me in  
> It's all right cause I'm with friends  
> Cause I'm giving up again  
> It doesn't matter
> 
> And I'm feeling like a ghost  
> And it's what I hate the most  
> 'Cause I'm giving up again  
> And this time (this time, this time)
> 
> This time I might just disappear"

They sat in a booth near the back of the restaurant, and to say that Shizuo felt out of place in this setting was the understatement of the century. Nevertheless, he kept his air of calm, letting the rage inside of him fester like usual. 

Shizuo had always been good about rolling with the punches.

“What is Heiwajima doing here anyway?” Namie drawled, immediately stirring Shizuo’s false sense of calm, “And more importantly, Mr. Kishitani, your outfit looks positively hideous.”

Shinra laughed uncomfortably, joking about wanting to change it up on his vacation day so everyone should just lay off of him. Shizuo seethed beside him, glaring in unison with Namie Yagiri, at Shinra in his ugly orange shirt and brown pants. Shinra never wore anything besides his lab coat, even when it was stupid, which was often. It really didn’t make any sense that he would be wearing such a bright colored shirt today on his supposed day off, and it made Shizuo suspicious. As far as Shizuo knew, Shinra wore it on those too, and anywhere really that he could show off his medical prowess despite not having gone to school for it. He reached over and tugged on Shinra’s cheek while he was still talking. 

“OW! What was that for Shizuo?”

“You’re not in disguise are you?” Shizuo asked. “Like, maybe you’re actually him.”

“Who? Oh, Orihara?” Shinra looked amused, “So then, you don’t believe me after all…”

“Hell no I don’t believe you!” Shizuo snapped, “As if something like that would ever magically be true. Nothing that fucking convenient would ever happen to me.”

It  _ was _ too convenient, and suspicious, and everything that made it smell of the fleabrain. Even after all this time, he could still identify the stench. Shizuo hadn’t realized how pleasant life had become since he had left the city. The sounds of the party in the back of Russia Sushi no longer bothered him at all. Well, unless Izaya was secretly back there making a ruckus because he managed to convince everybody that he was dead. 

“Hmm? What’s that man’s name coming up for all of a sudden?” Namie drawled, but she shook her head. “Never mind that, Mr. Kishitani. Are we going to talk about our business or not?”

“Well,” Shinra started, rubbing at the back of his head and looking sheepish, which only made Shizuo glare at him harder, “Not yet! I would like to get what I have to say out first and then we can talk about the Nebula stuff.”

“Typical self-centered Kishitani mentality,” Namie said, her words clipped and harsh like she was thinking about something unpleasant, “You only care about yourselves and your own priorities. Well, some of us don’t like you enough to put up with your narcissism.”

Shizuo sipped his water quietly while he listened to Miss Yagiri lay into Shinra, listening intently whilst looking off into the distance. Why the fuck was he here again?

“Just listen,” Shinra scoffed, “I promise it’ll be worth your time, and after Shizuo leaves we can discuss our issue, but…”

“So Heiwajima is the problem then?” Namie blurted before turning to make eye contact with Shizuo, still awkwardly slurping from his straw. “Get out then why don’t you? You obviously won’t be making any decent contributions to this conversation, and you’re a nuisance so just leave.”

“Hah?” Shizuo, while definitely feeling the inclination to leave at first, immediately felt resentful at being called a nuisance and being told outright to leave. Why was he getting treated like a problem when he was just sitting here? “I’m not doing anything. Why do I have to leave?”

“Weren’t you listening? Your presence is keeping me from getting my job done, so I need you to leave.”

“But Shinra said to let him tell his stupid piece first. I’m not going anywhere.” Shizuo popped the straw back into his mouth again and sat back, eyes closed as he turned away. Namie made an annoyed haughty sound, and Shizuo remembered that she said she worked for Izaya. 

“Now now Yagiri-san, it’ll only take a minute. I have a message for you from Izaya Orihara,” Shinra told her placatingly, pushing himself between Shizuo’s face and her own as if trying to protect her from Shizuo, or he from her or maybe both. Shizuo was too distracted thinking about this uptight woman working for an idiot like Izaya. Just what kind of piss poor situation did this woman have to be in that she would work for someone like that bastard? He was so immersed that he almost didn’t hear Shinra tell his spiel about talking on the phone with Izaya again. “He called me last night from an unknown number to let me know that he was on death’s row.”

Namie cocked her head to the side. Shizuo studied her facial expression carefully. There was no sorrow on her face, so it didn’t seem like they were lovers. That was good. 

“I see. Well then? There’s more, isn't there?”

“Well, he just wanted me to let you know!” Shinra said sheepishly, laughing, “And I thought I’d tell you since he was nagging me about my responsibility as his only friend!”

“How unusual,” Namie said, “I knew you weren’t the brightest crayon in the box but I thought even you would know when Izaya Orihara is lying.”

“Agreed.” Shizuo snorted, but Namie shot him a scathing look.

“Shut your mouth, you senseless pig. I still haven’t forgotten what you did to my brother and I’ve half a mind to skin you alive.”

“I don’t even remember that! And I said I was sorry.”

“Hold on!” Shinra wailed, “Aren’t you derailing the conversation even more, Yagiri-san?”

“What would be the point of discussing this even further?” Namie said, “Izaya is obviously in trouble of some sort, wants me to bail him out, which he knows I won’t do, or better yet, he’s scheming to do something and wants my brilliant assistance since I was so helpful to him before.”

“Huh?” Shizuo glared at her suspiciously now. She was Izaya’s former partner in crime then? Had she betrayed him? Or maybe this was all a ploy to shove Shinra off the trail, but the trail of what Shizuo couldn’t be sure. 

“You may be right,” Shinra relented, his voice taking an odd tone all of a sudden which made Shizuo look at his face. Shinra was staring at his own hands with a strange melancholic smile. “Maybe Izaya is just messing with me, and messing with you vicariously through me. I can never be sure with him because Izaya always only ever does what he wants.”

Shizuo felt his skin tingling as he listened to Shinra talk about Izaya. He wanted to explode, but he remembered Shinra mentioning that Celty thought he could help. This was what being a friend was all about right? Though in the end, he could probably admit that he was more so doing it for Celty’s sake than Shinra’s. 

“It’s just… something didn’t feel right. It felt like… maybe he really was trying to tell me goodbye. I could sense the bitterness in his words.”

“He wanted someone’s help and knew he wouldn’t receive it. It’s only natural he would be bitter.” Namie said, her cold emotionless voice continuously unwavering. “It’s not like he doesn’t deserve it.”

“You’re right,” Shinra admitted, “My beloved said the same thing. Whatever situation Izaya’s gotten himself into, she’s sure he got himself into it and that’s all there is to it. I feel the same way honestly. Izaya has always been a troublemaker, both for himself and others. I’m sure he’s hurt himself many times over because of the way he goes about living. I even got the impression in middle school that he was a little bit jealous of the way I lived!” 

Shinra laughed then, and Shizuo felt like he could hardly breathe. Namie was also studying him with a mysterious glare.

“It’s just that… right before he hung up on me, he apologized.” Shinra’s hands were clasping each other tightly enough to turn his knuckles white, but he was still smiling in that carefree way. “I’m not even sure what he was apologizing  _ for _ , but… he sounded very resigned and resolute, and it felt like… yes, he was definitely being sincere. Maybe that’s why I feel a bit of unease, since I was treating everything he said to me as a joke right before he hung up.”

There was a silence as both Namie and Shizuo processed this information. Shizuo was beyond comprehending Shinra’s words, and fell into his common habit of letting the conversation wash over him as he processed.

“I see,” Namie said, “So then it’s possible that he really is, or will soon be dead. Well, I always figured it would be this way. He was never all that good at taking care of his own life.” her eyes were no longer cruel when she spoke, and a strange farawayness seemed to wash over them. “Well, I can’t say he was the worst employer I’ve ever had. He did save me from my wretched uncle for a little while before I came to work with that perverted imbecile you call your father. Really, other than annoying me at every waking moment of the day, I would say he was one of the better ones. It was more like babysitting than anything.”

She was smiling sweetly as though insulting him, even when he wasn’t here, was so satisfying to her. Her face looked unnatural and villain-like with a smile, which Shizuo only barely glanced at. Shinra chuckled beside him.

“You sure don’t pull your punches Yagiri-san. How cruel of you! I have no idea why Izaya would ever want you to know that he was dead.”

“Really? I think it makes perfect sense. Maybe the little vermin finally learned to appreciate all the work I did for him. Or maybe he thought we were almost friends. Ha,” she laughed, but it was without a hint of malice. She was sending off a mix of different signals, indicating emotions which Shizuo wasn’t sure how to take. Was she sad? Amused? Disgusted? He couldn’t be sure, but probably because he wasn’t sure how he himself felt. 

The idea...that they were even remotely taking this situation seriously… this story that the flea had cooked up… 

It filled Shizuo with rage. 

How dare he? Shizuo thought. _How dare he, how dare he, how date he, how dare_ _he_ repeated over and over in his head. As Namie and Shinra continued fondly insulting Izaya and recalling what an awful person he was, all Shizuo could do was sit there and seethe. 

“What…” Shizuo growled all of a sudden between Namie and Shinra’s mixed laughter. “The fuck did you say before?”

“Hmm?” Namie said all of a sudden, “Oh that’s right, you’re still here wasting air.”

Her insults reminded him of Izaya. It made him boil with rage.

“W-What do you mean, Shizuo?” Shinra asked a little delicately. “What did I say?”

“Why the fuck am I even here?” Shizuo demanded, slamming his hand down so hard on the table that it broke in half. Namie lifted her drink before he did so in order to avoid it splashing on her. “I don’t want to hear this shit. I can’t imagine why Celty would think  _ I  _ would be a good person to talk to about this with, but she obviously had way too much faith in me. And like fucking hell any of this is true. What are you even doing?” Shizuo snapped. “Izaya’s probably laughing at you right now.”

“You may be right, Shizuo!” Shinra said with his blooming smile. “Maybe that means there’s finally a chance for the two of you to right things with each other.”

“Like  _ hell _ !” Shizuo bellowed, and he heard footsteps from behind him. “What the fuck was that that you said before, huh? You know, that bullshit about Izaya apologizing?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, he apologized to me and it was really weird! It really made it sound like a goodbye…”

“It’s  _ bullshit _ !” Shizuo snapped, “You’re an idiot if you believe that flea would ever do or say anything out of genuine remorse for anything after all the shit he’s pulled.”

“But Shizuo, don’t you think that you’re misunderstanding Izaya a little? I mean it’s not like he was the worst person to ever exist or someth…”

“Shut the  _ fuck  _ up!” Shizuo snapped, and everything in the restaurant quieted down after that. The party in the background, the white noise, and the door to their booth had opened up. He felt Simon’s hand on his shoulder trying to appease him, which only reminded him of all those days, which felt like only yesterday, when he had to pull Shizuo and Izaya apart. He looked around at the destruction in front of him and yanked his arm away before stalking out of Russia Sushi. He heard Shinra calling after him but he broke off into a run.

Bullshit.  _ Bullshit. _ It was all such  _ utter bullshit. _

Like hell was Izaya dead.

Like hell was Izaya going to die. 

He was a virus. An infestation. A perpetual decay. He didn’t die, or cease, he only ever continued in his awful way.

Izaya would never truly be dead until Shizuo killed him himself. Unless he could see that dead body underneath his hands he would never accept it. Never ever. He knew that to be a fact. 

He took a deep breath and slowed his run whenever he was off the street Russia Sushi was on. He let his legs carry him to wherever he was meant to go. 

  
  


He was climbing the steps of the building before he realized it, finding himself in the exact spot where it had begun. This was the place where he’d almost been burned alive. There were a lot of memories mixed in with that night. That sword army… Vorona… Celty’s head returned to her and then… not. Shizuo wasn’t really the type of guy who sweated the details, but even he had to admit that it was confusing to think about all the shit that had gone down. He’d heard about the guy who hit Kyohei that night got hit by a car himself, which had made him feel better about things. Also some kid with the last name Ryu-something went to the hospital. Vorona left not long after that, then Celty and Shinra went on vacation, the Dollars disbanded, some other shit happened in the city…

The truth was that nothing about the city had changed since that night. Things were slow until they weren’t. Life went on, and Shizuo found himself in the same place where he had started before his fight with Izaya. In truth, he didn’t remember a lot of details about the fight after the brief phone call they had. He remembered swinging steel beams, and hopping through the window of a business building. There were some other vague details he recalled, like chasing the flea and that smooth as silk, deadly voice speaking to him challengingly.

There was no way that was over. If anything, the flea had been in hiding all that time and was only just now trying to reveal himself from the shadows; maybe kill Shizuo for real this time. Last time he’d sprained his shoulder, and escaped near death by fire, but who knew about this time? His vision blurred as he grew angrier and angrier. That directionless anger which had no outlet to be released because the object of his fury was hidden from sight.

What really made him angry was what Shinra had said. There was no way in  _ hell _ that flea apologized, and if he did it was only to fool him so they’d all let their guards down. He had never thought anything nice about Izaya before, but he knew that people found him charming, and while he’d like to believe that Shinra at least wouldn’t fall for Izaya’s tricks given that he knew what kind of guy he was, the fact that he was Izaya’s  _ friend  _ of all things spoke against his judgment. Then again, Shinra was also friends with Shizuo…

Shizuo shook it off, angrier than ever now that he was thinking about the shared link between him and the person he most hated. He wasn’t sure if it was real, but Shinra carried real pain in his words as he spoke about Izaya, true sorrow and regret. What for? It was a waste on a scumbag like him. Shizuo almost wished that the man was directly in front of him at that very moment so that he could tear him limb from limb. That’s right. He had always known deep in his heart that only he could be the person to kill Izaya Orihara. 

“Izaya…” Shizuo growled under his breath like a chant. “Just where the hell are you hiding?” 

He looked down at the city below in one of the building’s windows. He and Celty had visited this place and talked about Izaya, probably for the first time since the fight and had a conversation about him like he was nothing more than a thing of the past. Shizuo had been a fool to ever think that he could move past it. Unless he saw that man’s corpse beneath his feet, he would never know rest.

“How dare you cause unrest here after all this time.” Shizuo hissed, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it up. “You’re not a fucking god like you think you are.”

He didn’t hear the footsteps approaching behind him. Or rather, he heard but he didn’t take notice. The sound of a person as light as shadow stood behind him.

“I will… destroy you.” Shizuo muttered, just before a hand tapped at his shoulder. He swerved, taken completely off guard and ready to hit with full-force, prepared for a sneak attack, but Celty Sturluson’s arms were held out in urgent surrender. He had almost yelled so he let out a loud exhale that was half scream when he recollected his bearings.

“Jesus Celty, don’t scare me like that!” he complained. “You understand that I’m on edge, right?”

Celty nodded her helmet once. Her body language was tense and reserved, as though she were also on edge. Shizuo immediately schooled his features, alert to her sudden arrival but feeling a sense of comfort knowing someone knew where he was.

“Do you believe that nonsense?” he asked, referring to a context he already expected her to understand. She popped her PDA out of her sleeve and began typing. 

[ _ I’m not sure what I believe. I believe that Shinra’s genuinely upset, and that makes me angry. _ ]

Shizuo scoffed. “Yeah I hear ya. Who would mourn for a guy like that?”

Celty preluded her response with a handful of exclamation marks. [ _!!!!! Right? I mean I can understand his sisters feeling a little sad, but even they seem to not care, you know? How come Shinra has to be the only person here suffering? _ ]

Shizuo raised an amused eyebrow. It made him happy sometimes, to know there was a person who existed that felt the same way about Izaya that he did. It made him feel a little less crazy. 

“Shinra’s outfit was really ugly today. He said he was on vacation, but that doesn’t sound right.”

Celty cocked her head to the side. [ _ Seriously? He was wearing the lab coat when I left this morning. He never leaves the apartment without it. _ ]

“He’s a fucking weirdo.”

Celty hung her head in shame. [ _ I’m aware. _ ]

They were both quiet for a minute as they both collected their thoughts about Shinra. It was probably a useless detail, but Shizuo couldn’t help but wonder about it. Among all the other things that he wondered about Shinra. He had also apparently had some business with that Yagiri woman as well. In a lot of ways, Shinra could be similar to That guy. That… flea.

“Izaya…” Shizuo growled under his breath, and Celty looked up at him, alert. “There’s no way he’s dead, right?”

Celty looked thoughtful for a long few moments before she answered, and her typing was deliberate and contemplative. It was weird how many little personality traits leaked off of her, but Shizuo didn’t like to stare at her for too long. He knew she was used to that from everybody else, which so was he, and he didn’t want to be like that. Even though he wasn’t sure how her vision worked, he liked to think that she gave him the same courtesy. 

[ _ Even if he isn’t, I don’t think it would matter. It’s best to ignore a guy like him as much as you possibly can because he’s just going to do what he likes. There’s no stopping him. _ ]

Shizuo frowned. He didn’t like the answer, but he continued reading.

[ _ I’ve been thinking of it as him giving me permission now to pretend like he never existed. Which, I would like to have never heard from him again, but since this is how he wants to announce his presence to the city, I’m choosing to take advantage of it. _ ]

Shizuo would have smiled but for some reason he couldn’t seem to do so. He looked down at the ground as though it had said something to offend him. Then he bit the inside of his cheek and broke his cigarette in two before tossing it on the ground and stomping it out. It was a nasty habit of his to put his cigarettes out like that, and he’d tried using the disposable baggies whenever he could, but he had unfortunately left his remaining pack of them on his dresser that morning. He blamed the subject of this conversation  _ completely. _

“That’s really nice to say in theory but… didn’t he like… almost destroy the city last time?” Shizuo asked, “That sword’s army, that shooting I heard about, Kyohei’s hit-and-run… he orchestrated all of it, right? Is it really okay to just let something like that happen all over again?”

Yes it was true that Ikebukuro hadn’t changed since Izaya’s disappearance, but maybe it was because Izaya had never truly been gone. Maybe he’d just been building up the cogs for an even greater fight, one where Shizuo really might die if he let his guard down. His breathing accelerated all of a sudden, and the memories came flooding back to him. He blinked a few times, sighing between his teeth and regretting putting his cigarette out. He could taste blood where he’d bitten his cheek. 

[ _ I’m not really sure how much Izaya was or wasn’t involved with those things. _ ] Celty typed, holding up her PDA. [ _ I do know that he had my head for a while. He had some sort of plans with it. Plans I still don’t fully understand. _ ]

“Seriously? What could a guy like him do with your head? Does it have like… secret powers that’ll grant him any wish he wants?”

[ _ That’s a genie Shizuo! And that’s not what I am. _ ] Celty seemed a little offended by that, shoulders tense and standing taut like a statue. 

“Oh right. Sorry, I don’t really… know anything about folklore.”

[ _ It’s mythology. _ ] Celty explained, [ _ And it’s not really something I think about all that much if I’m being perfectly honest. Ever since I settled down with Shinra, I don’t ever think about my past life anymore. _ ]

Shizuo studied her with a mixture of admiration and slight envy. Whenever he saw her nowadays she seemed to have a pretty relaxed disposition, as though nothing in the world could ever bother her. Even right now, with this strange situation around the flea she didn’t seem worried. Maybe she was under the impression that no matter what came their way, she’d be able to protect Shinra. 

Shizuo wished he had that kind of confidence in his strength. It hadn’t been enough back then. He hadn’t been able to squash that flea. He had knocked him through a building, punched his arm bones into pieces, and then some and he still hadn’t managed to kill him. In retrospect, he was relieved that he didn’t go to jail that night, nor did Vorona. She was a good person, even though she clearly had her faults, and she didn’t deserve to go to jail for someone like him. He remembered the desperation he felt when taking Izaya down. He wanted it to end so badly, so badly,  _ so badly. _ He had concentrated all of his life’s problems, all of his anger onto that one person, and it still hadn’t been enough.

He realized now that the anger from that night had never relented, probably never would until he finally killed that son of a bitch. 

He realized Celty’s phone was in his face and he hadn’t been reading anything the entire time, but she was still patiently waiting on him. He realized how spaced out he was and felt a little sheepish as he collected himself, muttering sorry and reading.

[ _ If Izaya is really dead, you’d be giving him what he wants after death by continuing to give him control, you know? I think ignoring him as much as you possibly can is what will keep him back the most. _ ]

Shizuo sighed, seeing Celty’s reasoning and realizing there was a sliver of truth to it. He had nothing to add other than a mumbled, “Maybe you’re right.” To which she put it back in his face again insistently.

[ _ Try not to think about it too much. Go about your life the same as always and that will really get that guy’s goat. _ ]

Shizuo fixed his mouth into a thin line in lieu of a smile. She was another person like Tom, he thought, who understood him for who he was. They knew how he felt without having to ever explain it to them. It was nice, and he was forever grateful to have someone like that in his life. Celty held the PDA to his face again.

[ _ Why don’t you go home for today and take it easy? You’re not working, right? _ ]

Shizuo nodded. “Maybe I will.” he said thoughtfully.

He decided that that was what he would do. He stood there with Celty for a few minutes longer, taking in the scenery of the city, his city, and admiring the view from this incomplete building. So long as nothing touched it, maybe it would finally see completion soon. Shizuo looked forward to that, and promised to see it and apologize that it took so long- over two years- to get back to the point it had once been.

When he arrived home, there was no meteor on his doorstep, nor was there a bomb anywhere in sight like Shizuo half suspected. He glanced around for any suspicious activity and got a little irritated by a band of teenagers gossiping on the street next door. It was true that he didn’t own the street of course, but he couldn’t just ignore people spreading a bunch of rumors near where he lived, and the very act of it reminded him of someone. He slammed his door hard as he went inside his apartment and the senseless chattering stopped; he didn’t know if it came from the distance or because they’d been intimidated by him. Whichever the reason, he was in too bad of a mood to care.

Two years and some change. It had been over two  _ years _ since he had heard from that Person- no, he was more like a zombie, the way he fixated on the things that he wanted without any regard for his own personal safety; like those sword zombies that came after him before. Shizuo didn’t have a modicum of respect in his body for Izaya Orihara, but he knew how the other could get when he had a plan. Humanity… was his purpose for living. He thrived on watching other people suffer, and used his knowledge of others to get him places in life. Shizuo was sure he didn’t have any idea what Izaya was capable of and he didn’t want to know.

Yet now, supposedly he was dead. 

Shizuo didn’t believe it for a second of course, but there was a dogged part of him that wondered what could’ve possibly been the thing to finally make him throw in the towel. Was it the police maybe? The mafia? Shizuo didn’t think the other would fall to either of those in this lifetime; he saw all organizations as his play things to toy with as he pleased. A man like him, who couldn’t even be scared away by the likes of the Yakuza, would never be taken down like that, and if he did it would only be because he liked to toy with them. 

“Why the fuck am I thinking about this so hard?” Shizuo grumbled as he pulled a bottle of milk out of his fridge and placed it on the counter. “He’s obviously planning something, but it’s not like I can figure out what it is.”

He thought some more, eyebrow twitching, about Izaya and all the things Shizuo knew him to be capable of. Planting bombs, destroying cities, he was sure that none of these things were outside of Izaya’s realm of capability. He’d apparently been sneaking around Ikebukuro for a while under the protection of those Dragon Zombies, and you needed serious cash to be able to pay off that many of their guys. Shizuo had beaten a few of them to a pulp in the past for getting out of line, but he was pretty sure that regular people wouldn’t be able to stand up to them. The only person who had ever been fully able to stand up to Shizuo, other than Simon, was…

Shizuo bit his tongue, growling under his breath, and chugging his milk. All this thinking was pissing him off. He started thinking about unnecessary things, like what happened to Izaya after Shizuo snapped his arms like twigs and he’d escaped the city under the guise of that flash bomb Simon let off. Had all of that gone according to Izaya’s plan? Had what Shizuo had seen as the peak of something terrible happening that night, actually been a precipice for something much worse down the line? 

It was easier for Shizuo, he thought, to think that all of the things that went down in the city were under Izaya’s control. It made it easier and easier to justify hating him, not that Shizuo ever felt he needed a reason. It was just that… the way Shizuo’s head was putting it all together made the guy sound like…

Shizuo laughed then. Under his breath, and a little slow at first until it turned into a dark chuckle.

“Jesus. It’s not like he was a god or something. He was just a piece of shit who didn’t belong anywhere.”

He put his empty milk glass on the counter and stomped out of his kitchen, not that anyone was there to hear it, and went to bed despite the fact that it was barely three o’clock. He found that he was tired.

He didn’t dream but when he did, it was about Ikebukuro, completely vacant besides himself, and every time he turned the corner he saw those kanji again.  _ Orihara Orihara Orihara _ and then the first name on its own:  _ Izaya _ . The first time he read it, he mispronounced it and Shinra made fun of him until Shizuo threatened to give him a flying lesson through a window. He wanted to say it was pretentious: a pretentious name for a pretentious guy, but he didn’t want to insult whoever the parents were of such a person, especially when they already had to suffer from that fact alone. It was a name that he had said many times, bellowed at the top of his lungs in a mindless rage. He could feel that same mindless rage bubbling up to the surface.

No way it was over. Not like that. Not this suddenly. 

There was no way that Izaya Orihara had just been killed by someone else. Logically, he knew the other wasn’t invincible, but he still felt in his mind that it was impossible for him to be dead. Izaya was no one’s responsibility to kill but Shizuo’s, or at least that’s what his mind said. 

His hands flexed once in his sleep before he awoke very suddenly. He took a deep breath and stared up at his ceiling for probably a good five minutes before he sat up. It was three AM again. He glared at the clock before stalking to the bathroom.

“Stupid.” he muttered. Dreams were stupid. 

He sat on his couch with the TV and flipped through the channels with the hope of killing some of the thoughts in his head. He frowned at the news, frowned at the anime that were on, frowned at the movies, and continued to frown for the duration until he finally settled on something he’d seen before. He still found himself muttering under his breath. He got pissed about that, then he got pissed because he’d forgotten he didn’t like this movie because the girl dies at the end so he ended up having to turn it off. 

“This is all that bastard’s fault,” Shizuo muttered. “Coming back into town like that.”

He had half a mind to charge at his old apartment complex. There were a couple whose addresses he could still remember fairly well. He wouldn’t be surprised if that bastard kept multiple apartments and hopped around. At least, that always seemed to be the case any time Shizuo went after him. That guy had always lived his life in a way that Shizuo could never understand, doing and saying things that Shizuo couldn’t begin to comprehend. 

Shizuo got out his phone and turned it on. No missed calls this time, but there was a text from Shinra saying he hoped everything was okay. Then he remembered how he’d acted at Russia Sushi earlier and felt embarrassed. He’d even charged out before finding out why Shinra was randomly talking to some woman who used to work for Izaya. Something about working for his dad now? He felt a little weird about not mentioning it to Celty. Should she know? 

His eyes were staring down at the missed calls before he knew what was happening. He stared at the time stamp, around 2:39 AM. Had that fleabag called to tell him he was dead so good luck killing him in the afterlife? It had been two years, but he couldn’t imagine anything Izaya ever had to say to him to be melancholic or full of any type of remorse. The fact that Shinra said he apologized…

“How much of my time have you wasted now, you bastard?” he demanded at the phone, “I’m so fucking sick of you I could stomp on your ashes if I had the chance!”

He was so mad, he wanted to destroy everything in sight. But then, he did a double take. 

If Izaya really had apologized then…

“Apology not fucking accepted asshole.” Shizuo said flatly, “I hate you. Nothing you could say would ever make up for all that you did. Vorona and Akane, and on top of it all, you stole from Celty. God knows what else too.”

He was looking at his phone, but it felt for a moment that he was talking to him- that fleabrain. The rage inside him boiled over once more.

“Celty’s right though.” he said finally, “I need to just let it go. I’m just gonna let it go.”

He put his phone down and went back to sitting on the couch. He didn’t feel like trying the TV again so he just layed down on his side, closed his eyes, and tried to think about nothing at all. It seemed to work at first, and then he realized where he was again. He was standing in that building, looking up at a demonized version of Izaya with horns and a tail, grinning down evilly at him. 

_ “You’ll never escape me,” _ he said in that shrill, tantalizing voice of his,  _ “I’ll always be watching you, never letting you rest even for an instant.” _

Shizuo screamed but the wind was too loud in his ears to hear anything. Everything became engulfed in shadow, till only an afterimage of Izaya’s face appeared, growing bigger and bigger before him until Shizuo was being swallowed inside that evil laughter. He awoke again with a start.

He grumbled under his breath. “Fuck sleep. Sleeping’s just as useless as he is.”

And because he was alone, he didn’t have to explain who he was talking about.

  
  


“Jeez man,” Tom grinned as they met at their usual place to start the day. “You look even worse than yesterday.” 

Shizuo glowered at him, annoyed by Tom’s smirk. He wasn’t in the mood to be teased, even if it was by Tom. He didn’t want it to be a topic of discussion though, so he straightened his face, shrugged, and mumbled something noncommittal under his breath. This only seemed to make Tom smirk even harder. He didn’t comment though, and then he turned on his heel and began to walk into the streets of Ikebukuro. Shizuo felt bad about starting two days in a row in a bad mood, but hopefully like the day before it wouldn’t last long and he could forget everything he’d heard about Izaya.

He intended to continue going on about his life like normal. Even if it was a lie, as he was 99% sure, he didn’t care if he was being lied to. He tried to imagine a world where that pest never bothered anyone or did anything, practically like he didn’t exist.  _ He didn’t exist.  _ Not to Shizuo anyway.

“...have you?”

Shizuo realized Tom had been speaking, and more importantly, that he hadn’t been paying attention to where he was going. “What?”

“I said I haven’t heard anything about her lately, you know?”

“Who?”

“Vorona.”

Shizuo froze in his footing, suddenly swept up in the fact that he hadn’t listened to a word Tom had said. 

“Uh. Yeah, I haven’t heard from her at all.” Shizuo admitted.

“Really?” Tom sighed, “You’d think she’d wanna check back in with her old coworkers. But, I get that she’s probably busy.”

“Yeah. Taking care of… whatever, back in Russia.”

They continued walking in silence and Tom seemed thoughtful. He turned to Shizuo with an odd expression.

“If there’s anything that’s bothering you man, you know you can talk to me.”

Shizuo stared at him. “Thanks.” he said, sounding blander than he meant to. Tom looked at him for a moment longer and turned away before continuing on. He wondered once more if Tom could read his mind. 

“Hey do you want to go to Russia Sushi for lunch since we’re close by?” Tom asked him after another hour or two passed in relative silence other than Tom making a little small talk with him. “My treat.”

It wasn’t until that moment that Shizuo remembered how he acted yesterday. He didn’t need to go back to Russia Sushi until he could properly apologize. “Uhhh that’s okay.”

“No really man, you seem kinda down. Just let me do this for today.”

“Uhhh… sure.” Shizuo agreed. Maybe it would be easier if Tom went with him to apologize, Shizuo thought. He took a deep breath and followed him up the street towards the entrance of Russia Sushi. The door cracked open before they could touch the door handle, and the face of the white guy who was usually behind the counter appeared halfway through the doorway.

“Sorry fellas, I’m afraid we’re not open right now.”

“Huh? You’re closed today?” Tom asked as Shizuo became distracted by the loud murmuring voice on the inside. It sounded like a foreign language. 

“Yeah well we’ll see. A bit of an urgent matter seems to have come up all of a sudden. Come back in a bit and maybe we’ll be open then.”

“Hold on,” Shizuo said seriously, “Is that… Simon talking in there?”

“He’s on the phone,” the man said. Shizuo forgot sometimes how creepy he could be. His deep set eyes looked haunted, and he didn’t think he’d ever seen this guy smiling for real. “Come back later Shizuo. I hope you’re feeling better today.”

“Hm?” Tom cast a look over at Shizuo, who was bashfully looking at his feet.

“Yeah… I wanted to apologize about that.”

“I’m sure you can make it up to us somehow. Anyway, now’s not the time for this discussion. I’ll see you both some other time.”

“Oh. Sure.”

They both started to step away and the man whose name Shizuo remembered to be Denis began closing the door. At that moment, Simon came stomping through the sliver of the restaurant they could see with some black device attached to a cordless phone, swinging it through the air as though trying to catch a signal. Shizuo heard him speaking in Russian, but he was able to make out one word.

_ “Изая, что это за чушь? Не прерывайте таким образом беседу. Изая!” _

It sounded a bit different than usual, but it was definitely that name and not a Russian word. Shizuo couldn’t see all of a sudden. He burst in past Denis, practically knocking the door into the wall. Denis, for his part, moved out of the way immediately, not that Shizuo was coherent enough to notice.

“What the hell is he saying?!” Shizuo demanded. “I  _ knew _ he wasn’t fucking dead!” 

Simon’s eyes locked on to Shizuo’s as he lowered the phone from his ear, looking grave. 

“He is gone.” Simon said seriously. His face was not like Namie’s nor like Shinra’s. He only seemed disappointed, and mildly concerned. Shizuo was shaking with rage now.

“Bullshit.” he hissed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh nowwwww we're getting somewhere. Okay okay okay you guys it's happeningggg we're getting close close close! You'll get to see them both in the next chapter! I promiseeeeee.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow I am nervous. This is gonna be... HEAVY. Especially for a while. Please stay tuned for the next chapter! 
> 
> ALSO I should note that there are some small references to the Izaya novels in here and there might be some later on but it isn't particularly necessary for you to know what it's talking about! If it ever comes up I'll add it to the notes.


End file.
